


Snapshots

by Fangirlwriting



Series: Rich’s Story [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: I will add more tags probably with each one shot, M/M, The characters are in order of appearence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-09-17 15:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16977084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlwriting/pseuds/Fangirlwriting
Summary: This is a collection of one-shots that you guys asked for.  They’ll mostly be about Rich and Jake since that was what the story was about, and they won’t be in any particular order, but enjoy!





	1. Well, That Explains A Lot

Jake had never talked to Jeremy, not really.  Sure, they’d said a couple words to each other at the lunch table before and they’d had that dance-off on Halloween, but Jake didn’t remember ever sitting down and having an honest conversation with him.

**That is perfectly acceptable.  Jeremy has not been worth your time until very recently.  He is also not exactly worth your time anymore now that his Squip has been deactivated, so I don’t recommend you have this conversation.**

Ah, yes.  Apparently Theatre came with a side effect of a permanent asshole in your head.  Jake would never act again.

In the next second he firmly told himself to stop stalling, and knocked on Jeremy’s door.

“Coming!” came a voice from inside.  The door was opened about half a minute later by a middle-aged man who appeared to be stirring a pot of sauce.  This must have been Mr. Heere. “Hello.” he said. “Are you one of Jeremy’s new friends?”

“Uh, I’m Jake.” Jake replied, looking at the pot.  “Um… you’re usually supposed to stir that on the stove.”

“I am aware.” Mr. Heere said, sounding a little bit offended.  “I had to bring it with me because you knocked on the door.”

Jake raised his eyebrows in concern.  “Did you leave the stove on?”

A look that clearly said _‘Oh shit’_ passed over Mr. Heere’s face and he turned and ran back towards a different part of the house, clearly the kitchen.

He left the door wide open, so Jake slowly walked into the house and shut the door behind him.  Mr. Heere came back out of the kitchen a second later, looking more than a little embarrassed. “Um, thank you.” he muttered.  “I’m still trying to learn how to do this whole ‘cooking’ thing.”

“That’s okay.” Jake said with a shrug.  “It is a little unusual to be making spaghetti for lunch, but I made a lot of mistakes like that when I first had to learn.  One time I almost burnt my house— um. Well.” he cleared his throat awkwardly.

The whole room was silent for a minute.  Clearly Jeremy had told his father what had happened, or at least, some of it.

“Well.” Mr. Heere said, clapping his hands together.  “If you’re going to talk to Jeremy, I think he’s in his room, you can just go right up the stairs.  It’s the first door on the right. Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I’m good thanks.” Jake replied before heading towards the stairs as fast as possible.  It took him about five minutes to get up them in the first place. At least his hotel room was on the first floor.

When Jake walked in Jeremy was going through a pile of clothes on his bed.

“Um, hey.”

Jeremy jumped and looked up.  “Oh, uh, Jake h-hey.” he said.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m t-trying to find some clothes I actually want to wear.” Jeremy mumbled.  “The Squip threw out a lot of my stuff. Including my cardigan.”

“You could just go buy a new cardigan.” Jake pointed out.

“Uh— I g-got that cardigan at the mall.”

“So?”

“I’m grounded.  Plus I d-don’t really want to go back there yet.”

“Oh.  Um, okay.” Jake said, and he stood awkwardly in the doorway for another second.  He wasn’t used to Jeremy seeming this nervous.

“D-do you need something?” Jeremy mumbled.

“Uh— can you explain this to me?”

Jeremy blinked.  “What?”

“Squips.  Like, how they work, what they do.  Everything.”

“You’re still trying to figure this out.” Jeremy said.

“Yeah.” Jake admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I mean, I had a fully functioning one for about an hour, and I didn’t even know the term until Michael told me.”

“Oh, shit.” Jeremy said.  He looked down and started fidgeting with one of the shirts.  “I probably could have done a better job at explaining all of that to you guys.”

“I mean, that’s kinda why I came here.” Jake said pointedly.

Jeremy sighed.  “Okay, well the way Rich explained it to me was—”

“Woah woah woah what?!” Jake waved his hands in front of him, and Jeremy stopped in surprise.  “Rich had a Squip?!”

Jeremy blinked.  “I thought you guys would have picked up on that with the whole syncing-to-each-others-brains thing.”

Jake kept staring at him.

Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck, and he suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable.  “Uh, yeah. He did. I guess he was less ‘synced’ to my Squip or uh, or something. But Rich got a Squip in… Freshman Year.” he said the last part quietly, as if he thought it would shake Jake to his core.

Which it did.

_Wait.  Rich went here Freshman Year?  That’s impossible, we met the first day of Sophomore Year, he was a new student— wait.  If he got a Squip in Freshman Year that means—_

_Oh fuck._

_Fuck._

_Do I even know him?_

“Jake?” Jeremy asked nervously, jolting Jake out of his existential crisis.

Right.  Rich wasn’t even why he’d come here.

“Uh— yeah.  Continue.”

“Jake, are you—”

_“Continue.”_ Jake said firmly, and Jeremy flinched.

“O— okay, well, the way Rich explained it to me was that Squips are Japanese supercomputers that tell you what to do, but I think that was probably a very, uh… “squipped-down” explanation?”

“Nice.” Jake muttered.

Jeremy laughed hesitantly before continuing.  “Yeah, th-thanks. Uh, my Squip was pretty… cutthroat, I guess.  I mean, they didn’t care who they hurt to get me what I wanted. And I guess I didn’t care either, at the t-time.  But then the play happened and I kind of realized everything I’d done and… well, I guess you knew that part.”

“They told me—” Jake cut himself off.  “Stuff. I think it was to convince me I needed them.”

“Yeah, they can do that.” Jeremy said quietly, looking away as he did so.

Okay, so that was a tiny lie.  When Jake’s Squip was activated he really hadn’t been able to think straight.  That was probably because of the ‘syncing’ that Michael had done his best to explain.  The things said for the purpose of trying to convince Jake that he needed them were more… recent.  (Mostly it was about his parents, because _of course it was._  What else would they talk about?  It was hard to find many insecurities for one Jake Dillinger.)

“Hey.” Jake said, and Jeremy looked up.  “Are you doing okay?”

Jeremy blinked.  “Um…”

“Yeah, maybe that was kind of a dumb question.” Jake said with an awkward chuckle.  He bit his lip as he tried to think of something else to say. “Do you need help with that?” he pointed at the mess of clothes surrounding Jeremy.

“No, no, no, I’m fine.  I got it.” Jeremy said quickly.

“You sure?  I don’t have anything to do right now.” Jake said.

“No, I mean, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you—”

“Nah, you’re not inconveniencing me.” Jake said, moving to sit on the bed before Jeremy could protest again.  He picked up an Eminem shirt and held it up in front of himself. “Do you like this shirt?”

Jeremy wrinkled his nose, and Jake laughed.  “Okay, so let’s make some piles. This one can go in the ‘burn’ pile.”

…

It was about an hour later, after Jake realized visiting hours would be over in a couple hours, that he told Jeremy he had to go.  This was about the same time that Mr. Heere called Jeremy down to eat the spaghetti he’d been making, so they both went downstairs together.

Mr. Heere asked if he wanted to stay for lunch, and Jake politely declined.

“That’s probably pretty smart.  I don’t think is going to be all that good.” Mr. Heere said.

“Great.” Jeremy muttered as he sat down.

“Watch it, son.  Only I get to insult my cooking.  And young man, you’re allowed to come help me learn how to cook any time you like.” Mr. Heere called to Jake.

“You can cook?” Jeremy questioned.

“Yep.” Jake did not elaborate, opting to leave instead.

He’d learned how to cook after his parents left.  He liked to think he was pretty good, but he was also the only one who ever ate the meals, so he had no feedback, and there wasn’t a kitchen in the hotel room, so he had no more time to practice.

Maybe he should help teach Jeremy’s dad.

Jake hadn’t been to the hospital since Rich had woken up.  Something always seemed to get in the way. First, it had been physical therapy for his legs.  Then, it had been the Squip in his head, and the aftermath—

And now it was what Jeremy had just told him.

_Rich had a Squip.  Okay, that goes from making me a best friend who didn’t realize his best friend had an abusive father to a best friend who didn’t realize his best friend had an abusive father and a supercomputer in his head._

_God, was_ that _why he set the fire?  Was it both?_

Jake took the bus back to his hotel, not even bothering to call Brooke again to pick him up.

He felt like a piece of shit.  At least before he had an excuse as to why he wasn’t visiting Rich.  It wasn’t his fault. Now he was purposely avoiding Rich because he was a coward.

Jake made it to the hotel room, and he couldn’t even ignore the second empty bed because it took him too long to walk past it.

**Don’t beat yourself up over this.  Richard Goranski before his Squip was a loser who was not worth your time.  His Squip is once again deactivated, so you don’t need to waste your time thinking about him.**

“God, shut _up!”_ Jake snapped at the glitching figure next to the bed before shoving his face in his pillow.

**That was the first time you have acknowledged me since the play.  Do I need to work harder at my attempts to discourage interaction with Richard Goranski?**

Jake didn’t move his head.

**Ah, I see.  You’re not going to see him anyway because you’re worried he is angry at you.  I suppose I can work with this.**

If someone could figure out a way to punch computer coding, that would be lovely.

Jake would have been content to wallow in his sorrow before there was a loud knocking on the door.

“I put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign up!” Jake yelled, lifting his head.

“I’m not the hotel staff!” came a new voice that Jake was familiar with by now.  He grabbed his crutches and eventually made it over to the door.

“Michael?” he asked, pulling it open.

Michael walked in straight past him and leaned against the wall opposite the bathroom door.  “You’re an idiot.” he said.

Jake turned to stare at him. “Is this how you always come into others homes?” he asked, a little baffled.

Michael pointed a finger out the door.  “You need to go visit Rich.”

Jake looked away and shut the door.  “I can’t.” he mumbled.

“Yes you can.  Jake, he thinks you’re mad at him.”

Jake’s head snapped up.  “What?! Why?”

Michael shrugged.  “Because of your legs.  Because of your house. Because _you’re not visiting him.”_

“I—” Jake bit his lip and averted his eyes.

“Dude.” Michael said quietly, and Jake looked up again.  “He misses you. He asked me to talk to you.”

Jake blinked.  “And since when did ‘talking to me’ become ‘lecturing me?’”

“Since you became an _idiot._  You know what I would do if this were Jeremy?”

“Yeah, well you and Jeremy are like, the dynamic duo!  You’ve been friends for twelve years, at this point you’re basically _obligated_ to care about each other!  Not to mention the fact that you actually know what Jeremy’s like—” Jake cut himself off.

Michael sighed sharply.  “I knew it.” He walked forward until he was looking Jake straight in the eyes.  “Jake, he thinks you’re mad at him, I promise he’s not mad at you, and on top of that he really needs you right now,” Michael said quietly.  “So get over yourself and go get to know him all over again.”

“I— fuck.”  He was right.  “You’re right.”

**This is not a good idea.**

“Of course I’m right.  Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

When they both made it out to Michael’s car Jeremy was sitting inside.

“What happened to being grounded?” Jake asked as Jeremy moved to the backseat to account for his legs.

“Dad let me on probation when I told him I was going to visit Rich.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I mean, that’s what we told him anyway.” Michael said, climbing into the driver’s seat.

Jake shot him a look.  “Gee, thanks.” he said.  “You’re gonna make me do this on my own, huh?”

“He’s your best friend.” Michael pointed out.

For most of the ride to the hospital the car was filled with either Jeremy and Michael talking or Bob Marley, who both of them seemed to know really well and who Jake had almost never heard before— which Michael seemed horrified by.  By the time they pulled into the hospital Jake was pretty sure he had signed him up for a subscription, planning entirely by him, in which he would send him a song to listen to everyday until he had heard them all.

Jake wasn’t sure yet whether or not he would actually listen to them.

When Michael pulled up to the doors Jeremy hopped out to give Jake his crutches, which he took gratefully before hesitating once again on walking in.  What was he going to see? Michael had said Rich was in a full body cast, which were definitely for his burns, which meant Jake hadn’t been that successful in making sure he didn’t get hurt in that fire.  And there was still the fact that he had never noticed anything was wrong until it was too late.

Jeremy noticed his hesitation as he was about to climb into the front seat.  He shut the door and was about to walk over to Jake when the window rolled down.

“Uh, Jeremy? A-are you coming?” Michael asked.  “We were gonna play AoTD.” He sounded incredibly unsure, and Jeremy paused again before leaning back towards the window.

“Yes, I’m coming.” he said, quietly and firmly, but also with a lot of guilt underneath, which was when Jake realized there was more to this interaction than what he was picking up on.  “Give me a minute, okay?”

“Okay.” Michael whispered, and he rolled up the window again.

“Are you two alright?” Jake asked as Jeremy leaned against the car next to him.

“You know the Squip can control you?” Jeremy said softly, completely avoiding the question.

“Uh… what?”

“During the play, mine made me beat up Michael.” Jeremy said.  He sounded very uncomfortable to be bringing this up, but he also seemed to have a point with what he was saying.  “Like, it _made_ me.  I couldn’t control what I was doing.”

“Okay…?” Jake said hesitantly.

“And Rich had his Squip for a lot longer than I did.”

“Um, yeah, you told me that.”

“So his Squip could probably make him do things a lot worse than beat someone up.”

“W-what are you saying?” Jake asked, even though he knew exactly what Jeremy was saying.

“I don’t know if that’s what’s bothering you, but I don’t think he did burn down your house.  I don’t know Rich as well as you do, but it doesn’t seem like something he’d do, especially if it’s _your_ house.  Just, thought maybe you should think of that as a possibility.”

Jake blinked at him for a moment.  Jeremy gave a nervous smile and turned to climb back in the car.

Jake took a deep breath before moving forward towards the hospital doors.  Before stepping inside he turned to look around at the car one more time. He couldn’t see perfectly clearly through the windows, but he was pretty sure Jeremy and Michael were hugging.

Jake turned around and walked inside.  He gave his name to the man at the front desk, as well as where he would be and that he had been there before.  The man let him go right up.

Rich’s room was a couple of floors up, and the door was open down the hall when Jake got off the elevator.  He was pretty sure as soon as he moved his crutches would give him away, so he took a moment to breathe again, before a second later taking a deep breath and started the long walk down the hall.

Jeremy had explained pretty much how the Squip worked, and that meant Rich probably wasn’t the way Jake thought he was, but Michael had told him to get over that, and with good reason.  And then Jeremy had revealed that Rich might not have actually burned down his house— so maybe Jake wasn’t _as_ terrible a friend.  Summed up, Jake still had no idea how this would go.

When he poked his head around the doorway, Rich was laying in a body cast on the bed by the window.  When he saw him in the door, his whole face lit up.

“Jake!”


	2. A Short Summary of Jenna Rolan’s Life Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why were so many people jerks? It had to be exhausting. Jenna supposed she could ask Rich, he would probably know. She didn’t think it felt any better to be on the receiving end than the giving end. He would probably know that, too.

So, Rich and Jake had finally talked.  And now they were dating.

Jenna was pretty sure everyone else had yet to realize, and they clearly wanted to let them stew for a bit, so she wasn’t going to mess with their fun, but if they thought they could fool her, they were morons.

Oh, wait.  They actually were.

It was hard to resist the temptation to post the news anywhere and everywhere, both because she actually was happy for them, because her Squip kept bugging her to do it anyway, and because she hadn’t posted any “big news” since the fire back on Halloween.  She had posted about Jeremy and Christine getting together, but people had only talked about that for a few days before going back to talking about the fire.

Every time some bastard shot Rich a weird look or said something about him, Jenna would fire back with her threat of ruining their social life, but there was only so much she could do.  And every time that happened she felt guilty.

Of course she still felt guilty.  She had been the one to tell everyone that Rich set the fire.  This was her mess, and she couldn’t seem to do anything to clean it up.

She knew people were still talking about it, because that was what people do.  They latch onto the biggest story, and the fire from Halloween was still the biggest story.  No one said anything if Rich was in the presence of any of his friends, but Jenna knew how to find her way through a grapevine, even if that grapevine was trying its hardest to avoid her.

People were still jerks to Rich when he was alone, to his face.  And Rich wasn’t saying anything, because of course he wasn’t. Jenna didn’t want to intervene, because that could blow up badly for everyone.  But on the instance that she caught someone saying something to Rich, or slipping a note in his locker, that person would suddenly have a nasty rumor about them floating around for a couple days, and probably lose some friends.  (If Rich had caught on, he didn’t say anything.) But even these rumors would only last a couple days, because whether they deserved it or not, Jenna couldn’t bring herself to say anything life-ruining, despite her threats. And people were starting to catch on to this.

Which meant, overall, that there was nothing she could do.  Gossip that bad about Rich would take more gossip about Rich in order to get people to stop talking about it.

Which was why, as soon as the pair gave their permission, Jenna would spread Rich and Jake’s relationship status to the world, and also why, until then, Jenna was trying her best to search for anything else that would work and coming up with nothing.  At this point, she wasn’t even sure Rich and Jake dating would overshadow the fire. More like be included in it.

She had really screwed up this time.

She did her best not to be too hard on herself, because Rich had already seemed to forgive her, and it was pointless to beat yourself up over something that someone else doesn’t blame you for.  And yeah, when she was spending time with Rich, usually when the whole group was hanging out, she could call him a moron and tease him about Jake and even the fire itself, sometimes.

It was when someone was actually being an asshole to him that the wave of guilt hit her all over again.

So she really needed a solution.  It had to simultaneously include Rich and not include Rich, be a bigger deal than Rich burning a house down, and not mention the fact that Rich had only done that because of the computer in his head.

That was the definition of impossible.

She asked him about it, once.  They were standing at Rich’s locker due to having the next class together.  Both of them were seeing everyone nearby shooting him looks, but they wouldn’t do anything with Jenna standing right there.

“Do they bother you?” she asked quietly, so no one would hear, and neither of them had to ask what she was talking about.

“Of course they do.” Rich replied.

“I can probably do— something.”

“It’s okay, Jenna.”

“You never even mention them.”

“I try not to think about them.”

“Still.” Jenna said.  “They don’t bother anyone else.  Not even Jeremy, and he had that whole thing that happened with Chloe.”

“That was part of the reason my Squip set the fire in the first place.” Rich said it soft enough that no one could hear.

Jenna froze.  “What?”

“They said we had to make sure the whole thing with Chloe didn’t become ‘important news.’”

“God, and it totally would have because I would have posted that too.” Jenna said, collapsing back against the lockers.  “I feel so frickin’ used.”

“Welcome to two years of my life.” Rich said casually, leaning back against the lockers as both of them ignored the ringing bell.

“Seriously, though, what are we supposed to do about all of  _ them?” _ Jenna gestured to the now empty hallway.

“Wait for them to become better people.”

Jenna snorted.  “Congratulations, by the way.”

Rich glanced over in confusion.  “On what?”

“Getting a boyfriend.”

“Wha— no, I don’t— I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please.” Jenna rolled her eyes.

Rich sighed in annoyance.  “Thanks. I hate how observant you are.”

Jenna snickered, and then they both moved towards class, preparing to get yelled at by a teacher when they got there.


	3. Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stargazing will soon become a very common thing with the whole Squip Squad, but the first night was pretty much Rich and the rest of the amateurs.

“And that one?”

“Gemeni.”

“That one?”

“Canis Major.”

“That one?”

“You just pointed to several parts of different constellations that we can’t fully see at this time.”

“You’re such a nerd!” Chloe yelled from across the field.

“Jake is the one asking!”

“You’re the one who has the answers!”

“People, please!” Michael yelled, rolling down the car window.  “Just enjoy the stars!”

When everyone had learned that Rich knew all the constellations, Brooke had acted like that was the decision to pick a night to go look at the stars.  And so here they all were, about an hour out of town on a Friday night, Brooke and Chloe all sitting underneath a tree with all its leaves missing so they could actually see the sky, Jeremy and Christine leaning against the car holding hands, Jenna and Michael both sitting in the car after Michael declared that ‘It’s too cold for this shit’ and Jenna agreed, and Rich and Jake were both lying back on the grass far away from the tree and the car (because they weren’t  _ amateurs _ ) and Rich naming every constellation that Jake managed to actually point to.  At some point during the whole thing they had started discreetly holding hands because ‘My hands are cold.’ Jake had said, before Rich rolled his eyes.

“I could actually teach you the constellations, you know.” Rich said to Jake when he pointed at another one.

“Yeah, but then we wouldn’t get to talk.  We’d just look and both know, and we wouldn’t say anything about them.”

“Or you’re too lazy to learn.”

He could feel Jake grin in the darkness.  “That too.”

“Hey, I see the Big Dipper!” Chloe called.

“No you don’t!” Rich and Jake yelled at the same time.

“Fuck you two.”

“You said your mom taught you this stuff?” Jake asked.

“Yep.  All four of us would come down near here and look up at the sky.  Our father never got the hang of it, but Matt and I got it.”

Neither of them acknowledged the passing mention of Rich’s father.

“Does Matt still do this too?”

“Well, considering sometimes he texts me when specific constellations look really great for that night, I’d say yes.” Rich said.  The next couple minutes were silent as everyone just looked at the sky, and Rich sighed happily.

He could feel Jake smiling at him.

“What?”

“You’re really cute when you’re happy, you know that?” Jake said quietly.

“I—” Rich was glad it was dark, because he was pretty sure his face went bright red.  Jake laughed, and Rich buried his head in Jake’s side to hide his face. “God, shut up.”

“Never.  I’ve made a point to remind you how much I like you, haven’t I?”

Rich gave a teasing whine that he was pretty sure was the cause of Jake’s breath catching.

“Ha.” he said.  “I can make you blush too.”

“Shut up.”

They went back to looking at the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last two have been really short, the next one will be longer.


	4. A Shocking Event (I’m So Sorry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremy shows up at about 3AM, clearly very upset about something. Jake can’t really relate, but Rich can.

Both Jake and Rich slept in the same bed more often than they would ever admit.  It was mostly because of nightmares (get your mind out of the gutter), but they had made a specific point to always move all of the pillows to their separate beds whenever they knew friends were coming over.

Unfortunately, they had no time to prepare such things when they were both woken up in the middle of the night by a frantic knocking on the door.

Jake was so exhausted he almost fell back asleep anyway, before the knocking started again.

“Rich, get the door.” Jake mumbled.

“Why me?” Rich mumbled back.

“I have crutches, it would take forever for me to get there.”

Rich groaned loudly before climbing up.

“Thanks, babe.”

“Fuck you.”

The slightly teasing mood ended instantly when Rich opened the door and Jake heard muffled crying from the other side.

“Jeremy?” Rich asked.

Jake sat up quickly.  “What?”

But in the next second he did indeed hear Jeremy’s voice from across the room, sounding scared and guilty.  It was too quiet for Jake to make out what he was saying.

“Okay, woah, slow down.” Rich said.  “Come on in.” the next second both Rich and an obviously crying Jeremy walked into the room.  Rich sat them both down on his bed, and Jeremy clearly looked incredibly embarrassed, even as he was wiping at tears.

“Dude.” Jake said, and both Rich and Jeremy looked over.  “It’s okay, really.”

Rich gave him a grateful smile before turning back to Jeremy.  “Okay, what’s wrong?”

“I uh— what do you do when your Squip’s being a jerk?”

Oh.

“What’s it saying?” Jake asked.  He realized a second later what he’d said and quickly backtracked.  “Obviously you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“I, uh— don’t really.” Jeremy mumbled quietly.

“Okay.” Rich said from the other bed as Jake finally managed to sit up and lean himself back against the headboard.  He was about to say something else when Jeremy cut him off again.

“I just kinda— like, you probably know the most about this stuff and you were the one who told me about them in the first place so I just kinda figured you would have some tips for how to deal with them, and— yeah.”

“Well, um.” Rich said quietly, and Jake was starting to pick up on the fact that this was a more private thing that the two of them understood.  “Most of the time I didn’t deal with them. I just kind of did what they said because I knew they could do worse.”

Jake felt a flare of anger towards Rich’s Squip before his own cut in.   **You know, that’s not a bad strategy.  You could try listening to me from time to time.**

“The few times I actually succeeded at getting them to go away when I needed them to do so, it usually involved beer.” Rich said, rubbing the back of his neck as Jeremy scrubbed at his eyes again.  “They were always a bitch about it when they turned back on too.”

Jake had to bite his lip from cursing out the supercomputers again, because that probably wouldn’t help right now.

“Sometimes I would make bargains,” Rich continued.  “Like, if you let me read a couple more chapters of the book we were assigned for English, I’ll do this thing you want me to.  But that probably won’t help you much either. Oh! You know what usually does work?”

“What?” Jeremy asked, fidgeting with his hands.

“Going to friends.  You already did that part, so good for you.  But a lot of times, when they were really bothering me, I would text Brooke or Chloe, or go talk to Jake, and that usually helped.”

“Really?” Jake asked curiously.  “I never knew that.”

“Yeah, despite all the stuff they said about you in particular, you were also really good at getting said voices to shut up.” Rich said, and Jake blinked in surprise that Rich was dancing around something so personal.

“I’m really good at ignoring mine, so I’m not sure that’s much help.” Jake said with a shrug.  “Most of the time I don’t even acknowledge them. Like, how often do you want to stick around if someone’s giving you the cold shoulder?”

**You forget that I am an AI not capable of human emotion, therefore it does not bother me.**

“Yeah, that works sometimes too.” Rich said.

Jeremy sniffed again and rubbed at his eyes. “Thanks.  Sorry I woke you guys up in the middle of the night.”

“We wake up in the middle of the night so often it doesn’t even bother us anymore.” Jake said, waving Jeremy off.

“You do?”

“I have a lot of nightmares.” Rich said quietly.

“Oh.” Jeremy said just as quietly. “Yeah, me too.”

The two shared a small smile, one of those ones that said ‘I get you.’

“So Jeremy, you can feel free to stop by anytime you want to.” Jake said after a couple seconds had passed.

“Thanks.” Jeremy said quietly, and then he looked down, embarrassed again.  “Do you mind if I stay here a little longer? And like, talk or something?”

“We do that every night too.” Jake said, as Rich and Jeremy shifted so they were both sitting on the edge of the bed, and Jake shifted himself around so he was facing them.

“Is it weird that it feels like our whole group has been friends a lot longer than we have?” Rich asked, leaning casually back on his hands.

“Nope.” Jake replied.  “I think being literally connected through supercomputers in your brains can make people pretty close, pretty quickly.”

“I didn’t get any ‘connection’ with any of you.” Jeremy sighed.  “I was like, the head or some shit.”

“Right, like how I had to help you and you didn’t have to help me.” Rich said.  “That makes sense.”

“Well, we just know you better than you know us, Jeremy.” Jake said.

“That actually sounds kinda creepy.”

“Deal with it.”

“What do you know about me?” Jeremy asked, honestly looking unnerved.  Okay, maybe time to tone down the teasing.

“Well, given the situation, all I really picked up on was a lot of fear towards the Squip, a lot of guilt relating to Michael—”

Jeremy flinched.

“—And a massive crush on Christine Canigula.”

And now Jeremy went bright red.

“But I guess that one doesn’t matter much anymore, since it’s kind of obvious you both like each other, since you’re, you know.  Dating.” Jake said, attempting to get Jeremy to shrug off his embarrassment.

They continued with conversation along these lines for about ten minutes before Jeremy faded off and fiddled with his fingers for a moment.

“Is something wrong?” Rich asked quietly.

“Um— okay, I just—” Jeremy glanced over at Jake and then back at Rich, biting his lip.  “Did your Squip ever shock you?”

Rich winced, and Jake sat up straighter.  “Wait, what? Was that something they could do all the time?”

Jeremy and Rich both looked away, and Jake got his answer.  “What— and yours can still do that?” he asked Jeremy. He had scars on his back from when the Squip had shut off, but they were barely even visible.

“No, not really.” Jeremy murmured.  “But sometimes it still feels like it, even if I know it’s not real.”

“It does?” Rich asked in surprise.  “Jeremy, you should tell someone about that.”

“I’m telling you.” Jeremy pointed out.

“Like, a professional, or something.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll walk into a therapist’s office and say ‘Hey, I’m pretty sure I have at least mild PTSD from the supercomputer in my head that shocked me for several months.’”

“Lie to a therapist.” Jake suggested from the other bed.

“And say what?”

Jake shrugged.  “Abusive partner?”

“That’s not really the same thing.”

“It’s about as close as you can get.” Rich said.  “I think Jake’s right, that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t know.” Jeremy muttered.  “I’d have to either come clean or lie to my dad too…”

“You don’t have to decide right now.” Rich said.  “But give it some thought, okay?”

Jeremy sighed.  “Yeah, alright.”

And then, to dissolve the tension, Jake said: “Hey Jeremy, do you wanna hear the dream I had about Mount Everest?”

Jeremy ended up going home about half an hour after that.  “Congratulations, by the way,” he said as he was leaving.

“On what?” Jake asked.

“Finally getting together.” Jeremy said with a smile.

“Aw, what?” Rich exclaimed.  “What gave it away?”

“The fact that all of the pillows are on one bed.”

Jake groaned in annoyance.  “You can share a bed platonically, you know.” he said.

“Yeah, but we’ve only done that once, like 12 hours before we got together,” Rich mumbled.

Jeremy gave a small chuckle. “Sweet dreams.  It was fun teasing you for a change.”

“Ugh.” Jake groaned as Jeremy finally left and Rich walked back over to the other bed.

They both laid there in silence for a while until Jake spoke up.  “Rich? Are you still awake?”

“Yeah.” Rich said, prefaced by a yawn.

“You sound tired, nevermind.”

“No, what’s up?” Rich asked, pushing himself up on his elbow.

Jake did the same thing a second later.  “Do you think therapy would help you too?”

“I think the Squip probably affected Jeremy a lot more than me to be honest, because he had previous shit to deal with, but yeah, I think it would probably help both of us if we weren’t two teenagers trying support ourselves on minimum wage.”

Jake sighed.  “Yeah, you’re probably right.  Do— do you think you have PTSD?”

“I don’t know.” Rich admitted.  “I looked up the symptoms, and some of them sound like me.”

They both laid back down and were silent for another minute until Jake said: “Did they really shock you?”

“Whenever I screwed up.” Rich replied.  “By their terms, anyway.”

Jake sighed.  “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”  He was staring at the ceiling and trying not to say anything, but he was seriously curious.  His scars from when the Squip shut off might not bother him, but Rich had had a Squip for two years.

“You want to see them don’t you?” Rich said quietly.

“What?  No.”

Rich gave him a look.

“Okay, yes.  But only if you’re comfortable.”

Rich took a deep breath.  “Yeah. It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Rich said, before pulling his tank top up and over his head to reveal his back.  Jake’s breath caught.

Rich’s back looked straight out of a nightmare.  There were harsh red lines everywhere. None of them looked brand-new, which was a huge relief, and some looked newer than others, but Jake couldn’t even tell which ones were the oldest there, because the same lines were run over and criss-crossed too many times.

Jake reached a hand out and tentatively touched one of the lines, and Rich tensed.  Jake immediately backed away. “Do they still hurt?”

“No,” Rich assured.  “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

Jake put his hand back at his side.

“You don’t have to stop.” Rich said quietly, so a second later Jake reached out and ran his hands over the lines again.  His hand reached a spot near his shoulder blades and he paused.

“What?” Rich asked, moving his head so he could see him.

Jake smiled a little.  “It kinda looks like the Big Dipper.”

There was a moment of silence before Rich burst out laughing.  “W-what?”

“Here.” Jake leaned over far enough and grabbed his phone, then took a picture and showed it to Rich, who proceeded to laugh even harder.

“Dude, that doesn’t look anything like the Big Dipper!”

“Sure it does!” Jake protested, pointing at the part he was talking about.  “See this part here?”

“That looks _nothing_ like the Big Dipper!” Rich repeated.

“Well, according to you, neither does the Big Dipper.”

“You’ve never _seen_ the Big Dipper, dumbass!” Rich said, and he laughed until his stomach probably hurt, which was exactly what Jake had been aiming for.

“Well, this settles it.  Tomorrow I’m going to get a sharpie and draw constellations all over your back.”

Rich laughed for a while longer before turning and pressing a kiss to the end of Jake’s nose, probably for the sole purpose of making him blush (it worked).  A second later he moved his kiss down and they both kissed on the bed for while until Rich once again pulled away for air.

Jake sighed melodramatically.  “You always cut our kisses short Rich.” he sighed.  “Get it? Short?”

“Fuck off.” Rich said, snuggling into Jake’s chest.

“You know you still don’t have your shirt on.”

“Look at the constellations on my back then.” Rich said, and he yawned.  “You’re really great, Jake.” he mumbled a second later, already close to falling asleep.

“Aww, babe, you’re so sweet when you’re sleepy.” Jake said with a smirk.

And because Rich really was, he didn’t bite back a comeback, instead just whispering something else into Jake’s chest that Jake couldn’t hear.

“What?” he asked, but what had been said would be lost to the universe, because Rich had already fallen asleep and would not remember saying it the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who thinks they know what Rich said?
> 
> Seriously, though, I just have a lot of ideas and feelings about Rich and Jeremy connecting over Squip stuff and helping each other out from time to time.


	5. A Conversation Pulled From the Squip Squad Chatroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since what the other colors of Mountain Dew do to the Squips is apparently left up to us, here’s a theory I have come up with. Enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

Jakey D: GUYS

Jakey D: OH MY GOD

IAlreadyKnewThat: Jesus Christ what

Jakey D: SO I WAS AT 7/11

Player One: I like where this is going

Jakey D: AND I WAS GONNA DO THAT THING WHERE U DRINK SOMETHING AND THEN PAY FOR THE EMPTY BOTTLE

Patient Zero: Grammar.

QueenBitch: Wow, that’s a truly amazing story, I’m shocked.

Jakey D: BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP

Jakey D: I ACCIDENTALLY GRABBED AND DRANK A MOUNTAIN DEW YELLOW

Patient Zero: Fuck are you ok what happened

Jakey D: I’M FINE

Jakey D: THE SQUIP SHUT OFF

IAlreadyKnewThat: What do you mean it shut off?

Jakey D: LIKE THEY GLITCHED AND SHUT OFF LIKE WITH MOUNTAIN DEW RED

Player One: Mountain Dew Yellow can’t shut off a Squip

Player Two: Yeah, if it did it would've been discontinued like Mountain Dew Red was

Jakey D: OKAY BUT

Jakey D: THEY SHUT OFF BUT THEN A COUPLE MINUTES LATER THEY CAME BACK

Patient Zero: Wait, seriously?

Patient Zero: That’s what happens with beer.  They shut off and then come back after a while.  You’re saying Mountain Dew Yellow functions the same way as beer?

Brookie Cookie: Thats actually really useful information, thanks.

Player One: Okay, but ur all missing the point

Patient Zero: Grammar.

JusticeforShakespeare: I see what you mean Michael

Player Two: What are you guys talking about

Player One: Stoplight

JusticeforShakespeare: Stoplight

IAlreadyKnewThat: What?

Player One: Green means go

JusticeforShakespeare: Red means stop

Player One: Yellow…

Player Two: God I hate you both

Patient Zero: We should all buy some in case we run out of red, and just have some on hand.  Thanks for figuring that out, Jake.

IAlreadyKnewThat: Yep, u figured that out by being a moron, like always.  Great job Jake.

Patient Zero: Grammar.

Jakey D: Thanks, Jenna.


	6. Amazing How Fire Exposes Our Priorities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a chapter from a different persepective, you can probably guess which one from the title.

“Well, leave it to Rich to ruin the mood.” Chloe grumbled.

Jake pulled his pants on while Chloe was still using the blanket to cover herself.  “Yeah, I got it.” Jake said, more than a little irritated at his best friend.

A second before he opened the door there was a pounding on it from the outside and Rich screaming: “I NEED TO GET IN THERE!”

Jake opened the door to the surprised reaction of Rich.

“What the— Jake?!” he asked.

“Yeah, what the fuck was that, dude?” Jake asked irritably.  “Maybe knock next time you come bursting into someone’s bedroom?”

“What the fuck were you doing?!”

Jake shrugged.  “Makeup sex with Chloe.”  Which you so rudely interrupted by the way.

He expected Rich to laugh and maybe roll his eyes, so it was very surprising when he pressed two fingers to the spot in between his eyes.  “Wh— C— can I just say, for the record, that that was a COLOSSALLY _BAD IDEA?!”_

Woah, what?  Jake rolled his eyes and smiled a little in an effort to get Rich to calm down.  “So? Since when do you care about whether or not something’s a ‘good idea?’” After all, most of the time when Jake told Rich he had sex Rich would either laugh and make some shitty joke, or clap him on the back.  Usually both, even when said person had a significant other. So why was he suddenly mad about Jake having sex with Chloe, when they were both single?

But Rich was clearly not thinking about any of that, because the next second he pressed a hand to his chest and took deep, strangled breaths.  Which was enough to tell Jake that maybe he needed to stop thinking about what was happening currently and check on his friend. “Rich, are you okay?  What’s wrong?” he asked.

Rich looked like he was trying to remember to breathe.  Something was really wrong. “You— you don’t— do you have any Mountain Dew Red in your mini fridge?”

“Mountain Dew Red?”  What the heck was that, and what did it have to do with anything?

“It’s like normal Mountain Dew, just red.  It was discontinued in the 90s.”

“What?  Then why would I have it?”

Before Jake could blink, Rich turned and leapt down the steps two at a time.

“What the fuck— Rich!”

“Woooah, he is seriously drunk, isn’t he?”

Jake startled and turned to see Chloe standing in the open doorway behind him.

“So are you.” Jake pointed out, crossing his arms.  So was he, sort of, though he didn’t feel nearly as drunk after whatever that was.

Chloe rolled her eyes.  “Whatever. I’m going home.”

“Do you have a ride?”

“‘ll be fine.”

“Chloe, you moron—”

“Whatever, Jake.” Chloe stumbled down the steps.

Jake groaned, and followed her down the steps.  He grabbed her arm to her grumbled annoyance. She said something about this being sexual assault, probably to get him to let go.  Jake looked in various rooms until he found Brooke standing in one rubbing at her face with her arm.

“Brooke, can you— are you okay?” Jake asked.

“What do you want?” Brooke sniffed.

“What’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong!  Jeremy cheated on me with Chloe!” Brooke sobbed, and Jake quickly shoved Chloe, who was probably too far gone to talk at this point, far out of Brooke’s possible vision.

“Oh, wow, that uh, that sucks.”

“What?” Brooke asked, because they both knew this was when he was supposed to hug her so he could comfort her and talk about how horrible Chloe was.

Chloe.

Who he’d just been having sex with.  After finding her _cheating on Brooke._

Fuck, Rich was right, that had been a colossally bad idea.

“I uh— sorry, I have to go.” Jake blurted slamming the door shut and dragging Chloe behind him.  He was pretty sure he heard Brooke start crying even harder, and he debated shoving Chloe into some innocent bystander and going back to comfort her before he realized she would probably just leave and get herself killed on the drive home.

He finally found Abigail standing by the door.  “Abigail!” he called, tapping her on the shoulder.

Abigail turned.  “Oh, hey Jake.” She seemed to notice what she was looking at a second later.  “You look like shit, are you okay?”

“Are you sober?  Can you take Chloe home?”

Abigail sighed.  “I’m probably more sober than she is.  Yeah, I got it.”

“Thanks.” Jake said, as he proceeded to basically pass Chloe over.  Abigail half-walked, half-carried her out the door.

Jake took a breath before turning around.  He was about to go find Rich and ask him what the fuck that had been about earlier, but Rich answered his question for him.

“FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE!”

It was coming from the kitchen.

“RICH?!” Jake screamed, fighting to get his voice louder than others around him already screaming— why, he wasn’t quite sure.

Jake fought against everyone running out the front door and down the stairs.

He got to the kitchen as fast as he could, but it was still too long.  When he opened the door Rich was standing in the middle of a world of fire.

_You should’ve checked on him.  Asked about his father, asked if something else was wrong.  Now look what’s happened._

“Rich!” Jake screamed, running forward and scooping Rich up, shifting him into his arms.  Rich started coughing almost immediately, and Jake would’ve done the same thing if he wasn’t forcibly holding his jaw shut to keep any coughs from escaping.  He wouldn’t be able to run in the middle of a coughing fit.

He felt his arms start to heat up from the flames and proceeded to run out the door while holding Rich to his chest.

Everyone else seemed to be out of the house already, so Jake ran over to the front door, only for the fire to beat them there.  They weren’t making it out that way. The rest of the exits on the first floor were already covered in flames.

Jake turned to run towards the steps.  Rich was moving slightly in Jake’s arms, and Jake held him tighter to get him to stop.  “I’ve got you, you moron,” he said, and probably would’ve continued with something like ‘What were you thinking’ if his throat hadn’t threatened with a coughing fit again.

Jake could feel the fire at his heels as he ran up the stairs.  His bedroom was the first door on the right, so Jake turned without thinking and kicked it.  Surprisingly, it opened and slammed against the wall. Well, that was probably gonna hurt when the adrenaline wore off, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on that.  He ran across the room and kicked the window straight out of it’s frame. That was gonna hurt more.

Then Jake thought about what he had (basically subconsciously) decided to do, and realized he probably wouldn’t have to worry about the adrenaline thing.  He’d probably have much worse injuries to worry about.

“What are you—” Rich started, only to start coughing again.

“Don’t worry.” Jake said, his mind long made up.  “You’ll be fine.”  He just might not be.

He turned so he was facing the fire and leapt backwards out the empty window frame.

He twisted himself further in midair to make sure Rich was on his chest, and hit the ground feet first before falling onto his back.

Jake heard a thump and a snap, and his mind went blank.  He was pretty sure someone was screaming— was that him?

Faces appeared above him, and Jake was pretty sure those were paramedics, but (probably by instinct) he still tightened his grip around Rich when they reached for him, and they had to pull harder to get Rich away.

Someone asked him if he’d drinken anything, and he nodded, not screaming anymore but still dazed.  The same person sighed, and then many hands grabbed him in various places, which resulted in him screaming again as they hoisted him up onto what was probably a cot.  He blinked hard, but everything was suddenly blurring and shrinking until he could barely see what was right in front of him, and then that disappeared too.

He was pretty sure that was called passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you caught the Sherlock reference, you’re the best.


	7. Gaming Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, gaming nights reveal more than who is good at video games.

Rich and Jake’s birthday plan went down in flames when Michael invited them all over to play Apocalypse of the Damned.  (Bar Christine— she was showing up late due to having insisted on going to talk to Mr. Reyes, because the spring musical was coming up soon and “I’ll be damned if it’s a repeat of something like last time.”  Yes, she had actually cursed. It had terrified every single one of them.)

Rich found himself more than a little jealous of how good at the game Jeremy and Michael were.  They had the whole thing down to an art form, including singular word calls of when to turn, what to watch out for, and even switching controllers when one of them was better at a particular area.

“Ugh, you both  _ suck,” _ Chloe complained, leaning back over the couch.  “How are we supposed to compete with twelve years of strategy building?”

“Chloe.” Michael walked over and put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder.  “It’s okay. No one’s judging you.”

“He’s judging you.” Jeremy hissed over his shoulder.

“Alright.  Come on, Jake.  Someone has to take these two down a few pegs.” Rich said, standing up.

“Dude, you’re setting us both up to look like idiots.”

“We only look like idiots if  _ no one _ manages to do it.  Notice how I specifically said ‘someone’ has to take them down a few pegs?”

“Oh, yeah, and someone else will be able to do it for sure.” Jake said.

Turns out Rich could beat the lowers levels, and could hold his own for a little while on the higher levels, but he strongly suspected his skills were being wasted due to the fact that he had to watch his boyfriend’s butt.

“Jake, you just press the attack button when you see a big scary zombie!  It’s not that hard, precious!” Rich screamed, dodging another zombie while Jake was quickly becoming surrounded.

“I’VE NEVER PLAYED THIS GAME BEFORE, COME HELP ME!”

Rich screamed in frustration.  “AHHH, DUMBASS!” Due to his rushing back to try and save Jake from a horde of zombies, they both died in the next couple seconds.

Michael looked like he was about to fall over with laughter, and Jake hit him over the head with a pillow.

“Next!” Jake called, offering the controller.  Chloe snatched it from his hand, saying something about watching a master at work.

“Did you call me ‘precious?’” Jake asked, raising an eyebrow at Rich before giving up the beanbag to Chloe.

“I also called you dumbass.  Is that why you couldn’t focus on the game?”

“Oh, you called me  _ ‘dumbath.’ _ _ Thorry _ , I  _ mithed _ that.”

Rich flipped him off.  “Chloe, help me eat his words, would ya?” he said.

“With pleasure.” Chloe said, cracking a knuckle.

Chloe was significantly better at the game than Jake was, and they actually made it a fairly good number of levels before reaching ‘Game Over’ and passing the controllers off to Brooke and Jenna.

Who promptly  _ killed it. _

“This game is supposed to be hard?” Brooke asked, as everyone was staring at her and Jenna, who just reached level ten without even trying.

“I know, right?  What’s the big deal?” Jenna asked, tossing the controller up and down in her hands between levels.

“Okay, I’m calling it.” Michael said, snatching the controllers.

“Aww, he doesn’t want to admit we’re better than him.” Brooke said, giving Jenna a fist bump.

Michael scoffed very unconvincingly.  “No, it’s… late, and I don’t want you to surpass Jere and I.  We still get to beat the actual game.”

“He doesn’t want to admit we’re better than him.” Jenna confirmed.

As Michael went on with protests and Brooke went on with teasing and others around the room laughed, Rich found himself subconsciously leaning into Jake’s side, because it had been a long day and he was tired and it felt really nice when Jake put an arm around his shoulders—

“HA!” Chloe screamed, and everyone in room jumped.  Rich realized a second later she was pointing at him and Jake.  “THAT IS A BOYFRIEND HUG!”

Jake and Rich instantly jumped apart.  “What? No, that was a bro hug!” Jake protested.  “See?” he and Rich both awkwardly patted each other’s shoulders.

But it was too late, and everyone else in the room was starting to grin.

Jenna and Jeremy both gave them sympathetic smiles.  “Sorry, you guys are busted.” Jeremy said.

“Wait, you already knew?” Michael asked.

“So did I.” Jenna said with a bigger grin.  “They thought they could fool me, bah.”

“And I found them sleeping on the same bed one night.” Jeremy clarified.

Rich groaned and put his head in his hands.

“We were trying to get you guys back for being so annoying about it.” Jake said with a sigh.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, that definitely worked.” Brooke said.  “I was really pissed at how blind you two were for a long time.”

“Boo-yah!  Ruined by my expert skills of observation!” Chloe said, throwing her hands in the air.

Jenna snorted.  “Yeah, right.”

The room now erupted into excited chatter about a very different topic, interrupted eventually by a door opening at the top of the basement stairs.

“Uh… hi guys.” Christine said, walking down.  “What did I miss?”

In response, because it was their turn to make everyone uncomfortable, Rich grabbed Jake and pulled his face against his for a kiss.

Christine squealed happily, and everyone else cheered.

Well, mission not accomplished, but this was a nice trade.


	8. Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t want to put these in the actual story because I felt like they would interrupt the plot or slow it down, but they’re perfect for a one-shot!

Rich took a deep breath and rose from his spot at the table in Chloe’s dining room.  They were all at Chloe’s house, because that had become the plan for the break, mostly due to both Rich and Jeremy needing to catch up with way too much missed high school work, and everyone volunteering to help out.

He moved across the room until he was standing above Brooke’s spot at the table.  “Hey, Brooke?” he asked, as Brooke glanced up from eating her sandwich.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Brooke asked.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Rich asked, his tone making clear that ‘alone’ was part of the question.

Brooke gave him a curious look, but nodded.  “Yeah, okay.” she said, and she got up and followed Rich to the living room, which still had all their study materials scattered about, but was now empty.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Brooke asked.

Rich sighed.  “I wanted to apologize to you.” he said.

Brooke blinked in surprise.  “Apologize?” she asked, sounding confused.  “Why?”

“My, um—” Rich muttered.  “When I still had my Squip, a lot of times I said really horrible things to you.  They kind of looked at you as expendable, and as someone whose feelings didn’t matter.  You were like… a means to our end, and that was a really awful way to behave. So I— I’m sorry.”

Brooke had tears in her eyes, and she was smiling.

“Rich,” she whispered, and before Rich knew what was happening, she was squeezing him in a hug.  “Thank you. That means a lot.” She leaned back. “But I hope you understand that a lot of that was the Squip’s fault.”

“I do, actually.  But I still needed to apologize too, especially since they’re not going to.”

Brooke laughed, wiping away her tears.  “Thank you.” she said again, giving Rich another hug.  He hugged her back.

Brooke pulled away a second later.  “Now let’s go eat food. We have a limited amount of time before we have to get back to school stuff.”

“I think that’s only true at school itself, Brooke.” Rich replied.

“I still want food.”

“That’s fair.”

…

“Hey, Chrissy.” Rich said casually, sitting down next to her in the front row of the auditorium.  “Wow, you weren’t kidding. Mr. Reyes really does ask you to help with casting.”

“It’s almost February, and we haven’t even started rehearsing yet due to the whole funding situation holding us back.” Christine said, her brow furrowed in clear concentration.  “We don’t have time for him to do all the casting himself.”

“Christine, you really take on way too much.”

“I’m fine.”  From the way she said it she clearly wasn’t really paying attention to Rich all that much.

“Let me rephrase.”  Rich grabbed half the papers.  “Let me help you.”

Christine shot him a glare.  “What do you know about theatre?”

“Christine, you are talking to a fellow lover of Shakespeare.”

Christine raised a disbelieving eyebrow.  Rich raised one right back.

“Hamlet, Act 6, Scene 3, Line 35.”

“Trick question.  There were only five acts in Hamlet.”

Christine hummed in acceptance.  “Alright, you can help.”

So while most of the possible actors were talking up a storm and being very annoying, and the stage crew was already starting on work, Rich and Christine were pouring over auditions for various parts.

By the time rehearsal was out for the day they had gone through most of the papers, and Christine said Mr. Reyes could handle the rest.

“I really do think you do more work than you should, Chrissy.” Rich said after they dropped them off in the drama classroom.

“Oh, normally I don’t do nearly this much.” Christine said.  “It’s just that with everything that’s happened with funding, and the last play ending in such a disaster, and with Mr. Reyes still trying to understand everything that happened with the Squips—”

Rich stopped up short.  “Oh my God.” he realized.  “No one ever explained that to him, did they?”

“I did my best.” Christine said.  “But if you can talk to him, I think it would really help him.”

“I will definitely make time to do that.  Geez, none of us ever even thought about him.” Rich asked.

“Not really.” Christine muttered, rubbing the back of her neck, and he could tell it actually really bothered her.

“I’m sorry, Christine.” Rich said.

Christine smiled gratefully at him.  “It’s okay. He’s just not doing so great.”

“I’d be surprised if he was.”

“Me too.”  Christine took a deep breath.  “Sorry I’ve been a bit snippy today.  I’m just stressed.”

“It’s alright.  I’ll help you if you need it, Christine.  Really.”

Christine smiled.  “Thanks, Rich. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, I uh, actually had a preplanned reason of wanting to talk to you.”

Christine shot him a curious look.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“You already did that.”

“No, a different apology.”

“Oh.  Wait, for what?”

“Uh, back in the beginning of this year, and the summer before, I kind of… hated your guts.”

Christine did a double take.  “What?!”

“I mean, back then I had no idea what it was, but now I think I was actually jealous that Jake liked you.”

Christine laughed, and Rich blinked.  “Oh, is that all? You had me worried there, Rich!  It’s okay! I never even noticed, so I’m promise I’m not bothered.  Plus, you and Jake are dating now, so it all worked out. Besides, you uh, might not believe me, but I was jealous of you for a while too.”

It was Rich’s turn for a double take.  “What? You were?”

“Back when I liked Jake, I wasn’t really sure why I did, and to be honest, I’m still not.  I was jealous of how well I thought you knew him. I figured you would have no problem figuring out why Jake was so great.”

“You had no idea how true that was.”

Christine laughed.  “Yeah, that’s a good point!”

“Alright.” Rich shoved his hands in his pockets.  “I’m gonna go talk to Mr. Reyes.”

“Right now?”

“Sooner the better, right?  You want to come?”

Christine beamed.  “Yeah, okay.”

They spent the next hour explained everything to him, answering his questions, Rich suggested his and Jake’s idea about lying to a therapist, and at the end of it all Mr. Reyes looked like he had a little bit of a sense of direction and an idea for what to do next.  That didn’t mean it wasn’t incredibly awkward to have the conversation with a teacher that Rich barely knew, but the way Christine was giving him a grateful smile at the end made the whole thing worth it.

…

And it came down to this.  Michael had told him not to blame himself for telling Jeremy about Squips, but that was really hard not to do, considering everything.

Rich had apologized to everyone else already, including Chloe, which had barely been noteworthy.  The conversation had basically been Rich saying “Sorry I was a bitch to you sometimes?” and Chloe going “I was too.  We’re cool.”

He had apologized to both her, Brooke, and Jenna over the break, and to Christine after he realized he probably should or it would feel like he was hiding from it, and that just left Jeremy.

He had no idea what to do with that set of eggshells.

Not to mention there was the fact that if he asked Jeremy “Hey, can I talk to you?” Jeremy was likely to panic and think that he had done something wrong.

Pretty much the only time Rich was able to talk to Jeremy by himself without making him panic was during theatre, so in the end Rich decided to just go for it.

He found a moment where Jeremy was looking at his script by himself (everyone had been casted now), walked up and said, “Hey, I wanted to apologize to you.”

Jeremy looked up in surprise.  “Rich? What— apologize?”

Rich nodded, and sat down in a seat next to Jeremy.  “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for how I treated you and I’m sorry I told you about Squips.”

Jeremy stared at him.  “Rich, you don’t— it’s okay.”

For a reason that Rich was pretty sure was guilt, that really got to him.  Because sure, he could accept other people telling him not to worry about it and forgiving him just like that, but he had really hurt Jeremy, a lot.

“No, it’s not okay!” Rich protested.  “I bullied you! And maybe I was a loser back in freshman year, but I never had anyone at school specifically target me!  You looked like you were terrified!”

Jeremy looked away proved his point.

“And I hate that!  I hate that I made someone scared of me, because while I was never bullied by anyone here, I had a father that made me know what it was like to be scared of someone, and it sucks!   _None of it_ is fucking okay!”

“I’m not scared of you anymore.” Jeremy pointed out softly.  “You’re my friend, Rich.”

“Yeah, but I still told you what Squips are.  That was my fault.”

“No, I chose to take one.  That was my decision.” Jeremy said.

“Michael said that too.”

“Michael’s right.  That part— that’s all on me.  And you telling me about Squips was not up to you.  That’s BS, and don’t even try to convince me otherwise.  Besides,” Jeremy continued. “I should be apologizing for stuff too.”

“What?  What do you have to apologize for?  You never did anything to me.”

“My Squip synced with yours, and that led to you setting the fire because of the thing with me and Chloe.”

Rich stared at him.  “How did you—”

“Jenna told me.  Yeah, she uh, she said she thought I should know, and she didn’t expect you to tell me.”

“But that was your Squip that synced with mine.  That wasn’t your fault.”

“It… feels like my fault.”

“Just like telling you feels like mine.”

They both looked at each other for a minute, and then Rich gave a breathy laugh.  “Squips suck, huh?”

They both laughed a little, and then Rich grew serious again.  “You really should forgive yourself for the syncing thing though.  And don’t you dare try to blame yourself for the fire. That—” Rich took a deep breath.  “That was my Squip’s fault and no one else’s.”

“Forgiving yourself is the hardest part.” Jeremy whispered.

“I know.”

They were quiet for another minute.

“Hey.” Rich said.  “You know anytime you need to talk…”

“You too.” Jeremy confirmed.

“RICH!  JEREMY!” Christine yelled from up front.  “GET UP HERE!”

“Okay, wow, she sounds…” Rich trailed off.

“We better get up there.” Jeremy said.

“Yep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just... Rich and Jeremy helping each other out you guys. I need it.


	9. Winner of the World’s Most Gullible Oblivious Idiot Award

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something was clearly wrong with Jake. The only thing that really made sense to him was that he had to have some kind of illness, but he’d never heard of one quite like this.

Jake was sick.

That was the only conclusion that made any sense.  He felt hot, he couldn’t focus, he was exhausted. Those were all symptoms of some kind of sickness, right?

Except.

Could someone explain why he only felt this way around Rich?

Every time Jake saw him he felt like his head started spinning, and it was about the most annoying thing in the world, because he couldn’t for the life of him explain why.  And it was becoming pretty annoying to suddenly get a rush of— something— whenever he was around him. He would’ve called it fear, and started panicking about if maybe he was scared of Rich for some reason.  Except it felt too—  _ happy _ to be fear.  It was like he got excited whenever Rich walked into a room.  It kind of made him feel like a puppy.

Jake had also recently found himself avoiding any and all physical contact with Rich.  He jerked away whenever their arms brushed in the hallway, his face got hot whenever Rich made some kind of joke followed by an elbow in the side or an arm around the shoulder, and he got nervous whenever Rich gave him that specific grin that was always followed by a high-five.

All of this made lunches a little bit awkward.  And classes they shared. And after school, due to, you know.  The fact that they  _ lived together. _

He needed to either get all this stuff under control or figure out what was wrong and how to get rid of the problem.

Maybe he should go to a doctor.  But what kind of illness caused a reaction around only one person?

Therefore, rather than go to a doctor, he decided to ask Jenna if she had any ideas, seeing as she usually understood what was going on with people.

“So why did we have to meet here?” Jenna asked.  “No offense Jake, but I think this spot makes everyone uncomfortable.”

They were standing in the ashy remains of Jake’s old house.

“I had to make sure Rich wouldn’t show up,” Jake admitted, somewhat guiltily, rubbing the back of his neck.  “And he never comes anywhere near here.” The last time Brooke had even driven them past here on the way to take Chloe home, he had had a full-blown panic attack.  Now Rich and Jake were always dropped off first no matter what. Jake kind of felt awful for using that to find a place to be away from him, but he really didn’t want to risk hurting his feelings.

Jenna looked confused.  “What do you want to talk about that he can’t hear?”

Jake sighed.  “Okay, um,” he took a deep breath.  “Is it possible to be allergic to a person?”

Jenna looked absolutely lost.  “What do— what?”

Jake started to explain what happened to him around Rich, and by the time he finished his sentence, Jenna was laughing so hard Jake was worried she’d start choking.

“Oh— my— God,” she managed to get out.  “Oh my God, Jake you— you are priceless!”

“What?” Jake asked irritably, crossing his arms.

“Allergic to a person?  Dude, that’s— oh my God, you’re too much!” she broke into another laughing fit.

_ “What?” _ Jake snapped.  “What’s so funny?”

“Jake!” Jenna said, when she finally stopped laughing.  “You  _ like _ him dummy!”

Jake blinked at her, trying to figure out what she was getting at.

Jenna groaned and put her head in her hands.  She reached up a second later and grabbed Jake’s shoulders, starting to shake him back and forth.  “Jake! You! Have! A! Crush! On! Rich!”

Jake jerked back in surprise.  “What? No I don’t. Besides, I’m straight.”

“Tell that to your hormones, they seem to go nuts every time he enters the same room, which is just,  _ so _ straight.” Jenna said, grinning so big it seemed to take up her whole face.

“Wha— I don’t—”

Jenna held up her hands.  “Fine, I won’t force you to say anything.  You can admit it to yourself when you’re ready.” she turned and started walking away, only to glance back over her shoulder as she was climbing into her car.  “But don’t keep Rich waiting too long.” she said, winking at him. Then she climbed in and drove off.

Jake sighed in annoyance and kicked a stray piece of brick at his feet that must have been overlooked by whoever cleaned up the house.

Well, that was entirely unhelpful.


	10. It’s Called A Cruel Irony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a new kid at school in the beginning of Jake’s sophmore year, and he seems pretty great at first.

Well, another August brought another school year.  Jake had no reason to believe that this year would be any different from the last one in that it would be filled with parties and people and somehow still very lonely.

His parents had left on another “business trip” which meant that his house was empty, which was not a pleasant thing when it was so big.

This is what Jake was thinking about when his thoughts were interrupted by the kid next to him groaning loudly in what sounded like boredom.

Jake glanced over to see a kid in a tank top with a bright red streak through his hair.  He did in fact look very bored.

It seemed Jake wasn’t the only one curious, because the gaze of the whole class turned to him, and the teacher did not look please.

“Excuse me,” she said.  “Mr…”

“Rich.” the kid said.  There was a brief pause, and he said:  “And I’m just wondering why we care about some dead guys’ plays.”

“Young man, I will not have that kind of attitude in my class.” the teacher said.  “I’ll have you know you owe a lot to Shakespeare. He personally created over 1,700 words for the English language.”

Rich shrugged.  “Well, sure, but it’s not like he’s come up with any new words lately.”

Jake couldn’t help the laugh he gave.  This kid was nuts.

Apparently other people thought it was funny too, because other people throughout the room laughed.

Rich glanced over at him, and Jake gave a little smile, before the teacher started to try and get everyone to quiet down and he looked back up at the front, mostly out of pity to her.

He did, however, spend a lot of the class looking at the kid next to him.  He looked vaguely familiar, and though Jake tried to remember where he’d seen him before, he couldn’t place his finger on it.

After class the kid was the first one out the door, and Jake jogged out the door and called after him.  “Hey!”

The kid turned, and Jake thought his face lit up a bit.  Man, he really did look familiar.

“Rich?” Jake asked, just for confirmation.  Rich nodded, and Jake smiled. He tried once again to shake the feeling that he’d seen this kid before.  “You’re… new, right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Rich said.

Okay.  So must have just seen someone who looked like him.  No big deal.

“Cool, I’m Jake.” he said, sticking his hand out, which Rich shook.  He found himself wanting to talk to Rich more, so he asked casually, “So, some friends and I were gonna go to Pinkberry this afternoon— the frozen yogurt place?  It’s, uh, Brooke’s favorite place to eat, and it’s her turn to pick. Do you wanna come?”

Rich’s face lit up.  “Really?” he asked, and a second later he flinched.  Jake didn’t know what to make of that. “I mean, yeah.  I don’t really know this place that well yet, so it’d be helpful to find some good places to eat at.  You have the address?” Rich asked.

“Oh, here.” Jake said, walking back inside the nearby classroom door and scribbling his phone number down on a piece of paper.  It would be easier to communicate that way. “One of my friends is a junior. He has a car. Text me your address and we’ll pick you up.”

“S-sure, okay.” Rich said.  He sounded a little nervous, and he flinched again a second later.  Jake decided not to comment on it, whatever it was.

“Cool, see you later.” he said instead.  He waved and started down the hallway to his next class.

…

Steven picked up Jake right after Dustin, so Jake naturally went to sit in the back seat beside his best friend.  Everyone else aside from Rich was already in the car, so Jake pulled out the address and started telling Steven when to turn.

“So what’s this Rich person like?” Dustin asked.

Jake shrugged.  “I dunno, really.  He made a joke at the expense of Shakespeare in English, though.”

“Always a good sign.”

“What’s he look like?” Chloe asked from the seat in front of them.

“He’s actually pretty short, but he has this red streak in his hair that looks pretty cool.”

“Yeah?  Is he cute?” Dustin asked, leaning teasingly up to Jake’s face.

“Shut up,” Jake said with a laugh, shoving Dustin’s face away.  Dustin was gay and Abigail was ace, making the two of them the only not straight people here.

“What, I can’t ask?” Dustin asked, before raising his eyebrow.  “Oh, I see. _You_ think he’s cute.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Jake said with a roll of his eyes.  “Oh, that’s the street, right there! Turn right!” Jake called up to Steven.

When they got to the front of his house, Steven honked, and out the door came Rich, who walked casually down the driveway almost as if he was showing off.

Brooke opened the door to let him in, and everyone introduced themselves.  And after that the conversation turned when Dustin asked Jake what extracurricular he was planning to do.

“Hey, Rich.” Jake called, mostly because he was curious.  “You planning on joining any clubs this year?”

Rich shrugged.  “I don’t know. Maybe. Which ones do you think are fun?”

Jake shrugged back.  “Sports are some of my favorites.” he said.  “I’m pretty good at volleyball and swimming. And of course student council is great, but I don’t have much of a chance for president as a sophomore.”

“Says who?” Rich says, like Jake was selling himself short.  “I bet we could find a way to get people to vote for you.”

Well, Jake admired the confidence, to say the least.  He smiled. “Wow, thanks Rich.”

“Yeah, thanks Rich.” Steven called.  “Taking seats away from the upperclassmen.”

Rich smirked.  “That’s what I’m here for.”  He turned back to face Jake and Dustin again.  “What uh, what clubs are you in Dustin?”

Dustin glanced at him.  “Huh? Oh, none.”

“Really?  So what do you do for fun, homework?”

Okay, it wasn’t that funny, but Jake still couldn’t help the smile teasing his lips.  “There are days when you call me out of boredom, dude,” he pointed out. And he had teased Dustin about those days for the very same reason Rich had just brought up.

“Wha— I just—” Dustin stammered.

“We’re here.” called Steven.

When he pulled into a spot everyone emptied out of the car, pulling the second seat forward so Jake and Dustin could get out.

The conversation in the car had been forgotten by the time everyone walked into Pinkberry, and Dustin was back to his usual self.  But Jake thought he caught him looking at Rich with confusion a couple times, though he couldn’t say why.

…

Jake had to admit that as much as he loved having Rich as a friend, there were certain things about him that made him a little uncomfortable.

For example, he seemed to have this vendetta against a kid named Jeremy Heere, and to a lesser extent, his friend Michael.  Jake couldn’t understand why, they’d never done anything, but he could let that go.

There was Rich’s mean streak, which was fine.  Chloe had a mean streak too, that didn’t make either of them bad people.

And then there was the fact that Rich could be homophobic.  Jake wasn’t entirely sure why this one bothered him. After all, _he_ wasn’t gay, right?

_Dustin’s gay._ said a voice in the back of his head.

Oh yeah.  Dustin had suddenly disappeared from the group and none of them could really say why.  Although as much as Jake hated to admit it, he suspected it had something to do with Rich, who was relentless in his teasing of him.  Maybe Dustin just didn’t want to deal with it anymore, and left.

Jake missed him.

But he found himself unable to confront Rich about it, for reasons that were made clear to him the day after his Halloween party.

He was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee at 12PM, wishing someone would wake up so he could talk to them.

Even though there were people in the other room, the whole house still felt far too empty.  Jake had once walked in and out of every room in the house in order, not counting the attic or basement, and it had taken him 15 minutes.

Jake hated this house.

His thoughts were interrupted by Rich coming into the kitchen.

“G’morning,” Rich mumbled.  “Afternoon. Whatever. Thanks for letting me spend the night.”

“No problem.” Jake replied, as Rich walked over to the coffee pot and the five mugs set out for everyone else and poured himself a cup.

Well, Rich was someone to talk to.

“Do you need people to stay for cleanup or are your parents helping with that?” Rich asked.

Nevermind, he didn’t want to talk to Rich.  See, this was why he missed Dustin. Dustin knew everything about his parents and that Jake didn’t like to talk about it.  Dustin knew how to act about them and was really good at picking up on what Jake needed when. He would’ve known to come into this room and immediately start talking about something stupid, or even to get up several hours ago so Jake didn’t have to be alone on mornings like this.  Mornings like this. Yeah, this was a bad morning.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Rich asked.

“My parents aren’t here.  Ever, really.” was all Jake could manage to say.

“Oh.”

Yeah, _oh._  Everyone said the _‘oh.’_

“My mom’s dead.”  Rich said, and Jake glanced up. That was the last thing he’d been expecting.  “And my dad is passed out in front of the TV most of the time. He drinks a lot.”

Oh.

Oh.  Rich could relate.

Oh, okay.

Jake found himself giving a bitter chuckle.  “I guess shitty parents is the cost of being popular, huh?”

“You don't have to be popular to have shitty parents,” Rich said softly.

Jake sighed.  “Yeah, I know.  And it's not like every popular kid does…” Dustin didn’t.  Chloe and Brooke didn’t. It was really just him. Or now, the two of them, he supposed.  It actually felt nice that Rich could understand. But still— “Sorry, I tend to joke about it a lot.”

“Nah, it’s okay.  I get it.” Rich took a sip of coffee, and it was silent for a brief second.  “I’ll stay to help clean up.”

“Thanks, man.” Jake said.  Maybe this morning wasn’t such a bad morning after all.

…

So there were very specific reasons that Jake decided he couldn’t risk losing Rich as a friend.  Besides, you couldn’t pick and choose the parts of people you liked. If Jake wanted to be friends with Rich, he had to be friends with all of him.  He couldn’t force Rich to change to make him feel more comfortable, that wasn’t fair.

And so as for those things that made him uncomfortable, he would let them go.

If Rich was happier that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who can finish the title quote in the comments?


	11. Happy Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is confirmed: Birthdays are better sans Squip.

_Knock knock knock._

“So many people,” Rich mumbled.  “So many people in the middle of the night.”

“What do you mean?” Jake asked, clearly just as tired.  “Only this person in the middle of the night.”

“This too many person in the middle of the night.”

“I still have leg thingys.” Jake said, rolling over to go back to sleep.

Rich groaned and shoved himself upwards, before realizing something that made him wake up a little more.  “No you don’t!”

“Sorry, I c’nt hear you over my leg thingys.”

Rich groaned again, in annoyance this time.  “I’d shove you off the bed if I didn’t want to break your newly healed leg thingys.”

Rich climbed out of the bed and walked over to the door, not even bothering to peer out the door before opening it, which was probably a bad thing in case it was a murderer.

It was a murderer.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Matt screamed, pulling Rich out into the hallway and squeezing the air out of his lungs.  This hug was joined by a different person a second later.

“You’re gonna make the hotel staff mad,” Rich said, his voice muffled into Matt’s hug.

With that, the three of them walked back into the hotel room, where Jake was now standing next to the bed with a slightly confused grin.  “Isn’t his birthday tomorrow?” he asked.

In response, Matt held up a phone that said 12:05.  “It is tomorrow.” he proclaimed smugly.

“You suck.” Rich said, rubbing at his eyes.

An unfamiliar voice laughed, and for the first time Rich noticed the other person in the room.  Standing next to Matt was a brown-skinned girl in a sweatshirt with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing glasses and a “Ramapo College of New Jersey” sweatshirt.

When she noticed Rich was looking at her, she stuck out her hand.  “Hi, I’m Jasmine.” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Rich shook her hand.  “I’ve heard about you too.” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes again.  “At a much more reasonable time of day.”

Jasmine chuckled, and Rich turned back to Matt.

“So, you mind explaining why you showed up at this ungodly hour of the night?”

“Morning,” Matt said.  “Technically. And I figured since you have a lot of friends now, I should come early to wish you a happy birthday.”

“You know that’s not how that works, right?  I didn’t even expect you to come.”

“Which will make this all the more memorable.”

“Oh, it makes it all the more _something._  Where are we going this early in the morning?  Nowhere is open.”

“So we are going to get some shitty breakfast food.” Matt said, holding up the car keys.

Half an hour later found them in a McDonalds eating that shitty breakfast food.

“So, we brought you these.” Jasmine said, handing Rich a wrapped present as Matt did from the other side of the table.

“Oh, you didn’t have to.” Rich said in surprise as he took them.  “I mean, Matt’s obligated.”

Jake snorted.

“But I don’t even know you, I would’ve let you off the hook.”

“Just open them, dumbass.” Matt said with a roll of his eyes.  Rich opened Matt’s first after sticking his tongue out, and what looked like a really old red notebook.

“Uh, gee, thanks?” Rich said.

“Look inside.” Matt said, so Rich did, and found—

“Oh my God!” Rich buried his head in his hands.  “Why would you keep this?!”

“What, what is it?” Jake asked, reaching for it.

“No!” Rich cried, slapping Jake’s hand away and snatching the notebook while Matt and Jasmine both laughed probably harder than they should be.

“Well, what is it?” Jake asked, now equal parts curious and annoyed.

“Way back in, like, third grade I wrote a punch of short stories and poems and gave them to Matt for his birthday,” Rich said, with his bright-red face still hidden.  “And they are _so_ bad, why didn’t you get rid of them?”

“Because they were adowabwe,” Matt said, folding his hands in front of his chest.  “And I loved your poems about how great a big brother I was. So I thought you should revisit some of the sentiment.”

Rich groaned in mortification, and Jake was now laughing a little too.

Jasmine had gotten him a notebook full of various writing exercises, which seemed to really confuse Jake.

“But if you’re never going to actually write or publish them as stories, what’s the point?” he asked.

“Well, first of all, they’re fun.” Jasmine said.  “I once wrote a short story where almost every sentence started with the letter ‘Q,’ just because I could.”

“And they also improve writing skills and help you figure out your characters.” Rich added on.  “That’s why they’re called writing ‘exercises.’ You need to practice for sports too, right? You aren’t just automatically the best player on the team?”

Jake hummed in consideration.  “Alright, I guess that makes sense.”

After breakfast both Matt and Jasmine reluctantly said they had to go.

“Aw, really?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, the real reason we came so early was because I’m out of time I could be away from campus, since I missed so much earlier in the year.  I mean, the school actually doesn’t care, but I do.” Matt said.

“And he has a big test in psychology today.” Jasmine added.  “So we came now.”

“Well, it was great to see you.” Rich said.  “I’ll skip school to come up for your birthday, though, because I’m just a better brother than you.”

“My birthday’s over summer vacation.”

“Better brother.”

“We are all skipping today though.” Jake said, grinning.  “We even convinced Jeremy, which was not an easy feat, believe me.”

“And I’ve _told_ you you didn’t have to do that.  We could just go to school, you know.”

“You are worth celebrating.”

(Rich had to admit it felt really great to have friends who cared so much, and he would very much enjoy spending the day at Chloe’s with everyone.)

They said goodbye to Matt and Jasmine, who drove off pretty quickly in their hurry to get back to school before their classes started.  At the last second Rich remembered his idea from the hospital and pulled Jasmine aside before she left and asked her to text him if she thought Matt needed help and wasn’t asking for it.

Jasmine promised to do that, and winked in a way that made Rich suspect that either her or Matt had had a similar conversation with Jake.

After they left, both Rich and Jake went back to the room and went back to sleep for another long while, not waking up until an annoying call from Brooke revealed to them that she was waiting outside to pick them up— Rich refused to let Jake drive just yet.  He was supposed to take it easy.

…

At this point it was probably known at least a little that Rich felt uncomfortable getting presents from people that he felt like he’d hurt.

Everyone took this into account, and promptly ignored it; and that meant there was seven presents sitting on a table in Chloe’s living room when Jake, Brooke, and he all walked in, and standing near the table were five people.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” everyone screamed.

Rich couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face.

The whole party was a blast.  He and Jake gave a Very Official Announcement regarding their relationship status, and everyone pretended to be shocked.  They ate plenty of vanilla cake and cupcakes, and he opened everyone’s presents.

“You guys remember Rich’s party last year?” Chloe said before shoving another bite of cake in her mouth.

“Yeah, I helped plan that one.” Brooke said.  “There were… a lot more people there.”

“There’s was also the abomination known as artificial chocolate flavoring,” Rich said through a mouthful of cake and a lisp, which made it a lot harder to understand what he was saying.

When everyone figured it out it was immediately met by protests, to which Rich countered, “It’s my birthday, you don’t get to yell at me.”

The whole lot of them stayed up late into the night, talking and joking and also doing some stupid shit.  They swam in Chloe’s pool at one point— “It’s TINY!” Jake exclaimed, and Chloe flipped him off— which was an odd experience at first because Jake and Rich both forgot that Jake no longer had crutches and did what they had done when he had them, which was lay upside down at the edge and dangle their arms in the pool.  Everyone stared at them until Jake said, “What?” and they all gestured at his legs.

He ended up not actually swimming due to the fact that he still had to take it easy, but Rich was steadily improving on his swimming skills since he had originally been taught back on Christmas day, and he _almost_ beat Christine in a race.

And then later on, as everything was dissolving into more ridiculous territory, they played a game of truth or dare that resulted in learning that Christine could stand on her head for 13 seconds, Chloe had once spent $200 on a jacket, Jeremy could easily balance on Michael’s shoulders for over 5 minutes, and Jenna had actually solved a low-level government conspiracy several years ago and hadn’t told anyone before now.

“You _are_ gonna work for the FBI or something when you grow up, right?” Michael asked.

Jenna wiggled her eyebrows, and no one knew what that meant by the time the party ended.

“Alright, everyone.” Jake stood up as they were all eating dinner and raised his glass of Kool-Aid into the air.  “I’m proposing a toast, and I’d like to say a few words.”

“Oh my God, no.” Rich groaned.  “Don’t say—”

“To quote a wise old english wizard: ‘Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!’” Jake declared like it was the most original thing in the world.  Then he sat back down. “But seriously, babe, happy birthday.” he added a second later.

Rich clinked his own glass of Kool-Aid half-heartedly against Jake’s and downed the whole thing like a shot.

“Happy birthday, Rich” went in a chorus around the room, and Christine gave him a hug.

After dinner they all watched a bunch of stupid movies that they talked over (Rich wouldn’t remember what they were the next morning), and Rich looked around the room with a smile.

Jake nudged him in the side.  “Happy birthday. Is this better than last year?”

Rich nestled into Jake’s side and Jake wrapped an arm around him.  “This isn’t even in the same universe as last year.” Rich said happily.  “Thank you.”

Jake smiled at him.

They ended up staying in the position for hours, until they fell asleep and Jenna took a picture “To blackmail them with later.” she said (spoiler alert, she never did).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is shorter than I originally intended, but I ultimately decided I didn’t want to ruin the birthday fluff with any kind of plot or angst.


	12. Bad Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation to have.

“Hello?” came the voice over the phone, and Rich’s stomach tightened.  He was sitting on the bleachers behind the school during lunchtime. He would go back to the cafeteria after this, and hopefully his friends wouldn’t worry, but he needed to have this conversation.

“Um, hi.” he said quietly.  “I’m trying to reach Natalie Baker?”

“That’s me.” Natalie said.

“Oh.  Okay, um, are you Nicole Baker’s sister?”

“What?”

“Nicole Baker’s sister.”

“What?”

“Nicole Baker’s—”

“Sweetheart, I can’t understand you.  Do you have a speech thing?”

Rich immediately clamped up.

“Hello?”

Rich said nothing.

“Look, if this is some kind of prank—”

“No!” Rich exclaimed.  “Are— are you Nicole _Baker’s_ _sister?_ ” he asked, taking his time and making sure he could get the ‘s’s out right.

The other line went silent for a second.  “I used to be.” Natalie spat. “I don’t want anything to do with her.  So unless you’re calling because she’s sending me a giant apology card—”

“She’s dead!” Rich blurted.

Natalie groaned. “Sweetheart, can you do us both a favor and avoid words with the letter ‘s’ in them?”

Rich’s face went bright red, not that Natalie could see it.

“Nicole Baker is— Nicole is— she— Nicole died!” Rich cried in frustration.

Natalie went silent again.  “If you’re fucking with me—”

“No!” Rich cried again.  “I called after my brother said— said—  he _told me_ that you guys— that her family didn’t know yet and no one could find you.  He told me a while ago that she— that Nicole killed herself— herse— her—”

“Nicole… killed herself?” Natalie said quietly.

“Yes— yeah.  She— um, Nicole stabbed— stab— sta— ugh, took a knife to her head!”

He could _hear_ Natalie flinch on the other end of the line.

“And I— I couldn’t contact your mother or father so— so I— I mean—”

“Our parents passed away last year.” Natalie said quietly.

“Oh.” Rich said, the franticness finally fading from his voice after he realized Natalie wasn’t likely to hang up anymore.  “I’m sor— I mean, I apologize— I mean, I—”

“Was it because of the Squip?” Natalie asked, and Rich blinked in surprise.

“You… you know about the Squi— about that?”

“Yes.” Natalie said quietly.  “My sister took a Squip back in her sophomore year of high school.  She turned into a total jerk, to her friends, to me, to everyone.”

“I know.” Rich said quietly.

They both sat on the phone in silence for another second.

“How do you know Nicole?” Natalie asked eventually.

“She— uh, Nicole told me about Squi— uh, told me about Squ— she— Nicole—” Rich took a breath.  “Nicole told me about _Squips.”_ he managed to get the word out with some struggle.

“Where is she?”

Rich fought down the urge to cry at the memory of Nicole telling him about the tic tacs, and the urge to scream _Your sister ruined my life!_ because that wasn’t fair.  She hadn’t. Rich had done that himself.

“She— Nicole found my brother.  He goes to Ramapo, it’s—it is— Ramapo, the college, about an hour away from here.”

“Where’s here?” Natalie asked.

“Oh, uh, sorry— I mean— Red Bank New Jers— NJ.  You know, Middleborough High Scho— Middleborough High?”

“Right, sorry.” Natalie said.  “Is she still there?”

“As— far as— I think she— I think.  No one there knew her family.”

“I’m going down there.  Thank—” Natalie cut herself off, and Rich was pretty sure she was holding back a sob, because he heard her whimper.  No doubt this whole conversation had been a rollercoaster. “Thank you for telling me.” she said, and hung up before Rich could say anything else.

Rich sat there in silence for a moment, staring at his phone, before pulling it out and texting Matt.

_Thanks for not giving up on me._

As he was was walking back into the school his phone buzzed.   _Of course not.  You okay?_

Rich didn’t respond.

…

Rich woke with his stomach tightening in a sickening way, and he squirmed from his spot next to Jake.

Jake didn’t wake up though, so Rich laid back down and nestled his head into Jake’s side, hoping that was enough that he wouldn’t have any more nightmares.

**That is not likely.**

Rich whimpered and buried his head in his pillow.

**Richard, stop that.  You’ll suffocate yourself.**

Rich’s last movement caused Jake to stir, and he looked over at Rich.  “You okay?” he asked.

Rich buried his head in Jake’s chest, and Jake pulled him closer.  “What is it?” he asked.

“Just a nightmare.” Rich whispered, even as the Squip continued talking in the background.

“You want to talk about it?”

Rich shook his head, and Jake ran his hand through Rich’s hair until Rich fell back asleep.

…

None of his nerves had calmed the following morning.

Rich tried to get rid of some of the awful feeling by grabbing his favorite sweater to wear and reassuring himself that it was Tuesday, so he just had to get through 2 more schooldays, 2 times.

It didn’t work that well.

Jake, curse his slowly growing skills of observation, noticed something was up.  “Are you alright?” he asked quietly in the car, making sure Brooke and Chloe couldn’t hear.

Rich nodded without thinking about it.

Jake narrowed his eyes in concern.  “Rich—”

“And we have arrived in Hell.” Chloe said loudly as they pulled into school.

“Great!” Rich called happily, and jumped out of the car before Brooke stopped moving and before anyone could give him a weird look.

Rich was let off the hook in English because both Jake and Jenna showed up as the bell was ringing.

Jake kept shooting him looks the whole class though.

Rich would talk to him and reassure him he was fine if he was, and if he had any semblance of an idea for why he _wasn’t_ fine.

For now, though, he just needed people to leave him alone so he could get his own _head_ under control.

He didn’t have any friends in period two, which was both a blessing today and a curse always, because there was a bunch of people who gave him jerkish looks and comments under his breath and all of that was twice as bad from his seat in the back of the room.

On the other hand, no one asked him what was wrong.

But none of the comments helped at all, and by lunchtime Rich was worried he would implode, or collapse, or break down crying.

When he sat down everyone was deep in conversation about something.  Rich wasn’t sure what it was about, he wasn’t really paying attention.

“Right, Rich?” Chloe asked casually.

“What?” Rich asked glancing up.  “Oh, yeah, yeah.” he said, having no idea what he just agreed to.

Christine gasped in what was probably mock horror.  “Rich, how could you?!”

Like he said, probably not serious, but that was the final straw in Rich’s seriously frayed nerves, and his breath caught as he started curling in on himself.

Everyone seemed to now pick up on the fact that something was wrong.

Jake looked at Rich in concern and nudged him gently.  “Hey, are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I uh— I have to pee.” Rich said, and got up as casually as possible (which wasn’t saying much) before running from the lunchroom and towards the bathroom.  He made it inside a stall and collapsed against the side, trying to reign in his sudden panic, because what the _fuck,_ nothing was _wrong._

He happened to forget to lock the stall, though, and some time later— Rich had no idea how long it had been— the stall door opened again and someone else walked in to see Rich with his head buried in his knees rocking back and forth.

Rich probably would have yelled ‘Occupied!’ or ‘Go away!’ if he was currently capable of speaking.

“Hey.” said a voice in front of him.  Rich had no idea who it was. “Can you hear me?”

Rich managed to squeak out some kind of sound of affirmation.

“I’m gonna count to four, and I want you to try and breathe, okay?”

Rich squeaked again, and the person started counting.  Rich attempted to breathe in, but couldn’t make it all the way to four.  But instead of being mad, the person simply started counting again, and Rich tried to breathe again.  They both continued this until Rich managed to breathe normally and start to pull his head away from his knees and identify the person in front of him as Michael.

“You okay?” Michael asked quietly.

“Sorry,” Rich muttered.

“It’s alright.” Michael said.  “You wanna sit here for awhile?”

Rich was still trying to catch up with his brain, and got out, “But I’m gonna be late to class—”

“Who cares?” Michael continued.  “We’ve skipped school before for much less important things.”

“I don’t understand.” Rich mumbled, leaning his head back against the wall.  “Why am I so upset?”

“Well, in my experience panic attacks don’t always have an obvious trigger.”

“What’s a panic attack?” Rich asked.

Michael’s eyes narrowed in concern.  “That was, Rich. What you just experienced was called a panic attack.  Has that happened to you before?”

“I mean… yeah.  Every now and then.  Not for a while. Not really since Jake and I started talking in the middle of the night.  And I don’t think during the day before. I don’t know, something’s just been really weird today and the Squip was really loud last night and—” Rich stopped abruptly.

Michael sat down next to Rich against the wall.

“Rich… do you know that if something Squip-related is bothering you, you can talk about it?”

“I have talked about it.”

“When was the last time you did that?”

Rich paused because he realized he didn’t remember.  When he had apologized to Jeremy? Before he had gotten together with Jake?  When Jeremy had come over in the middle of the night and he had ended up showing Jake his back?

All three of those had been over a month ago.

“I, um…” Rich trailed off.

“Is there something you need to talk about, Rich?”

Rich was quiet for a minute, because he honestly couldn’t think of anything at first, until something tickled the back of his mind.

“You know, um, Nicole Baker’s funeral is today.”

“Nicole Baker?”

“She graduated almost 2 years ago now.  Nicole was a senior when I was a freshman.”

A small amount of recognition flashed across Michael’s face.  “I vaguely remember her.” he said. “Wasn’t she that asshole that no one missed?”

Rich flinced, which Michael picked up on.  “What?” he asked.

“Nicole Baker… was the person who first told me about Squips.” Rich said.  “She killed herself two days before Halloween.”

“Geez…” Michael muttered.  Then he paused. “Wait, how do you know her funeral’s today?”

“I told her sister that she’s dead.”

“You—” Michael’s eyes widened.  “You did huh?”

“I told her sister that she’s dead, and I’ve kinda been keeping tabs on when her funeral is.”

Michael stared at him.  “Rich, wha— why would you do that?  You’re just gonna make yourself miserable.  You—” now Michael crossed his arms. “You better not have been trying to punish yourself or some stupid shit like that.”

“No, I wasn’t, I promise.  But no one could find her family, and… yeah.”

“And the funeral thing?”

Rich was quiet for a minute.  “I wanted to prove I could handle it.” he mumbled, finally.

“Handle what?”

“This.  All of this, Squip stuff, everything we’ve gone through, everything _I’ve_ gone through.  You all seem so _over it._  You’ve all forgiven each other and yourselves and shit, and I’m just… stuck here, having nightmares and having to tell this stranger that her sister is dead while she yells at me about my lisp and getting yelled at by assholes about the stupid fire and having panic attacks in bathrooms!”

Michael had been quiet for Rich’s whole rant, and now he asked gently “Are you finished?”

Rich nodded, eyes welling up with tears that he scrubbed away.

“First of all, yelling at you about your lisp is shitty.  I get that her sister died, but that’s a shitty thing to do.  Second, tell me the names of these assholes, because we have a bunch of people that just made our shit-list, I can promise you that.  And third, _no one_ expects you to be over this yet, Rich.  Jeremy is the person who had a Squip longest aside from you, and even that was only a couple months.  You had yours for almost _two years._  It’s going to take you longer to move on.  It just is. How long have you been sitting on this?”

“I don’t know.  Kinda just the last week or so, but…” Rich looked away, fidgeting with his hands.

“Rich, none of hold anything against you, and that includes recovery time.  We’re all here for you. You know that, right?”

“You— I don’t want to hold you back or be an inconvenience—”

_“You’re not._  Rich, look at me.”  He did. “You’re not.”

“You’re literally calming me down from a panic attack in a filthy school bathroom.”

“Yeah, well I’ve a panic attack in a bathroom before, and it’s not fun.  I would do it for anyone.”

“You’ve had a panic attack in a bathroom?”

“Long story.  Not now.”

“Okay.” Rich mumbled.

“Hey, Rich?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you should talk to a therapist.”

“I can’t afford it.” Rich mumbled, quieter now.

“I’m gonna talk to my moms and ask them to pay for it for you.”

“What?” Rich jerked upwards.  “No, I— Michael, I can’t ask you to do that!”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering.  Remember the whole conversation we just had about ‘you’re not an inconvenience?’  You’re my friend, and frankly, _I’m_ not asking.  Okay?”

Rich bit his lip.  “Okay.” he whispered.

Michael held his arms out.  “Hug?”

“Hug.” Rich confirmed, and Michael wrapped his arms around him as they sat there for a moment.

When Michael pulled back he stood and offered a hand to Rich, who took it.  The lunch bell had rung a long time ago, but when they both left the bathroom everyone was waiting outside.

“Rich!” Jake called, immediately pulling him into another hug.  “I knew something was wrong, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Rich said, hugging Jake back.

When Jake was satisfied, he pulled back and Rich was immediately tackled by two new people, being Christine and Chloe.

“Rich, we’re sorry!” Christine said.

“We don’t know what we said, but we’re sorry!” Chloe affirmed.

“No, it wasn’t you guys.  I’ve just had an awful day.” Rich reassured them.

“Well, clearly this place isn’t making anything better.” Jenna said.  “Let’s get out of here.”

“Guys, we can’t keep skipping school.” Rich said.  “I already had two years of stuff to catch up on, I really can’t add on any more.”

“Oh, you’d rather stay here?” Jake asked, raising a teasing eyebrow.

Rich glared at him teasingly.  “You guys are bad influences.”

“You’re welcome.” Brook said, and they all walked out the side door of the school by the cafeteria and didn’t look back.


	13. More Bad Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running on no sleep is not good for this kind of situation.

Well, today had been terrible.

He had gotten a ton of homework from all of his worst classes on top of getting almost no sleep last night, work had run long and the customers had been awful, he couldn’t exactly vent any of that to anyone which made it worse, and—

Oh yeah, and he was pretty sure his little brother had bought a supercomputer.

Matt knew this because when he got home Rich still wasn’t there, which was such an unusual thing it might as well have been the apocalypse.  And when Rich finally did arrive, his face was a picture of guilt, and what could he possibly have to be guilty about other than the thing they had discussed the day before?

Matt sat ramrod straight from where he had been panicking at the kitchen table.  He had spent the last half hour debating whether or not to call the police, and Rich’s face when he walked in didn’t exactly calm him down.

“Rich, what did you do?!” Matt asked almost desperately, starting to make his way over.

For a brief moment Rich looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and then he practically sprinted towards his bedroom.

“Rich!” Matt called, but stopped running and lowered his voice when his father stirred in the living room.  He made it to Rich’s door just in time to hear him lock it.

“Rich, please come here, let’s talk about this,” Matt said, knocking as quietly as he could.  He got no response from inside of the room. “Rich!”

Still no response.  Matt tried a couple more times before he was interrupted by a shout from the living room.

“Quiet down!”

The spike of fear caused from that was what finally caused Matt to leave Rich’s bedroom door and go to his own room.

It was almost 11PM, and he had been home for about an hour, which gave Matt another half hour before his father started asking about food.  He used the first half of that half hour on homework, and the other half out in the kitchen, scrambling as quietly as he could in the cabinets for whatever there was to eat.

He ended up making the last two eggs, and splitting the scrambled results up between the three of them.

Rich came out a few minutes later and grabbed his plate of eggs.

“Rich, we need to talk about this.” Matt said.

Rich turned and walked off before Matt could say anything else or even read the expression on his face.

A couple minutes after that, Matt’s father yelled his name from the living room and Matt carried his eggs in.

“Is this it?” he asked, his voice filled with irritation.

“There were only two eggs left.” Matt said, trying to sound as respectful as possible.

It didn’t work.

“Don’t talk back to me!” he snapped, shoving Matt backwards.  Luckily, he was drunk enough that it didn’t hurt that much.

Matt mentally added grocery shopping to his list of things to do tomorrow before grabbing his own plate of eggs and going back to his room to do his homework.

He’d have to try talking to Rich again tomorrow.

…

Well, he didn’t make much progress with that.  By the time he woke up Rich was already gone, and Matt didn’t see him on the bus either.

In fact, Matt didn’t see Rich at all for four days.

He finally saw him again that Sunday, when he ran into Rich in the bathroom, cleaning up a cut on his cheek.

“Here, let me help.” Matt said, reaching for a washcloth.

“I got it.” Rich snapped, rubbing harshly at the cut with his own.

Matt stopped.  “Rich—”

“Save it.  I don’t want to hear your disappointment.”

Before Matt could contradict him, say he wasn’t disappointed, he was worried, say that this wasn’t anything like him, Rich threw his washcloth into the bathtub and stormed out.

Matt picked up the washcloth and washed the blood out of it before taking it down to the laundry room and starting a load.

It would be another week before he saw Rich again.

…

This summed up Matt’s interactions with Rich in the remaining months before he left for college.  He communicated mostly through texts, and he never got responses. Whenever he did see Rich he would attempt to talk to him and usually fail, aside from the off chance that he had to talk to him about something other than the Squip.

Matt was doing his best to try and find out anything he could about the Squips, but it was like they were the only thing in the universe that seemed to not exist on the internet.

He’d gotten his acceptance letter from Ramapo during this time and narrowed this down as where he was going in the fall.  He was pretty sure Rich didn’t know that.

Graduation was the most _thing_ thing that had happened to Matt in a long time.  It wasn’t like it was going to be a big deal before the Squip, but Rich was going to come.  Matt was more than a little disappointed, but it wasn’t like he could say anything to anyone.  The only person Matt had _ever_ vented to was Rich, and he could count the times he’d done that on one finger.

So Graduation was… eh.  It was going to be better, but Matt also couldn’t find it in himself to hate it when everyone else was so obviously having a blast.  That seemed to be his M.O.

His birthday came and went with no ceremony, aside from Matt spending some spare money he had found in the couch cushions on a donut at Dunkin Donuts.

And then finally came the day he had planned to leave.  He knocked on the door to Rich’s bedroom and softly called goodbye.

He left a note for his father with notes the way the house needed to be run and second guessed actually going to college for the millionth time.  How could he be sure the house wouldn’t fall apart and no one would die in his absence? Most people would say that was being egotistical, but Matt was fairly certain he actually did hold the household together.

Eventually he taped another note on Rich’s door regarding where he was and telling him he could contact him and he would come down anytime he needed before dragging his luggage outside.  He had to get all of it to the train station by walking.

“Matt, wait!”

Matt turned around to see Rich running down the steps before launching himself at Matt.  Matt gave a little ‘oof’ as Rich made contact.

Matt sighed inwardly before giving Rich a hug.

Rich pulled back.  “Let me help you with your bags.” he said.  Matt still wasn’t used to the absence of the lisp in his voice.

“I have to carry them all the way to the train station.” Matt said, surprising himself at the lack of enthusiasm in his voice.

“I know.”

The two stared at each other for a couple seconds before Matt handed Rich one of his suitcases as he dragged the other one behind him.

They traveled to the train station in silence, and got there about ten minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive.

“I have to go.” Rich said as soon as he set Matt’s bags down.  “I made a deal to come say goodbye, and now I have to go.”

“What kind of deal?” Matt asked.

“I have to go burn my notebooks now.”

“Rich!” Matt gasped.

“Fine, it’s fine, I just wanted— it’s not like I’ll miss you.”

“Rich—” Matt sighed, and pulled Rich in for one more hug.  “I’ll miss you too. You know I’m here for you, right?”

Instead of an answer, Rich shoved Matt away from the hug and walked away without a second glance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, I bet you thought this chapter was about Rich at first!


	14. What Happens When You’re Raised By Your Older Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens is he gets the rights to some things that would typically go to the parents— like warning the first boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short conversation between Jake and Matt (the protective-big-brother speech, because somebody asked for it).

“Hey, Jake.” Jake glanced over from where he had been watching Rich pull Jasmine off to talk to her.  Matt was standing behind him, looking casually threatening. “Can we talk for a second?”

“Uh… sure?” Jake absolutely was not ashamed that his voice cracked a little on ‘sure.’

“Great.” Matt grabbed Jake and pulled him into the car, where it would be very easy to murder him and make it look like an accident by driving the car into a tree.  “I can see you already know what this is about.” Matt said, leaning his elbow against the steering wheel as he turned to face Jake. “So I’ll just open with you hurt my little brother and I’ll break your legs again.”

Jake nodded.  “Got it.” he squeaked.

“And also I’m really happy for you two.” Matt said, relaxing his casually threatening pose.  “You two have been through a lot, and I’m glad you came out the other side still caring about each other.”

“I doubt anything else was possible,” Jake admitted, rubbing the back of his neck is slight embarrassment.  “Rich is way too amazing to leave behind.”

“You’re definitely right about that.  And I have two years of experience to prove it.” Matt said.  “You know I told Jasmine I was going to give you the ‘You’re Dating My Brother’ talk, but I also have an offer for you.” Matt said.  “If something comes up, and Rich is being stupid and denying help, you can always tell me, okay? I have a couple tricks up my sleeve in that department.”

Jake smiled a little.  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Matt opened the car door to step back out.  “Don’t hurt my little brother, Dillinger.”

“I… do not intend to.”

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: sorry, I forgot to mention that this takes place on Rich’s birthday, so his conversation with Jasmine is the one from that chapter.


	15. A Return to Renaissance Era Theatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...as brought to you by Christine.

Christine burst into school that morning actually screaming.  The gazes of the entire hallway turned to her, but Christine was running right up to Rich, from where he was putting stuff in his locker.

“Jesus Christ, Christine.  What is it?” Rich asked. Christine just screamed a little louder and waved some pieces of paper in his face.

“Christine, I cannot see what that is if you wave it back and forth,” Rich said, holding his hands up to avoid getting paper cuts on his face.

Christine shoved the whatever-it-was into his hands, and continued to vibrate next to him in excitement.

Rich was holding three tickets to group of people who claimed to be an authentic (as much as possible, anyway) Renaissance Traveling Theatre Troupe, coming to Red Bank in a couple weeks to perform _A Midsummer Night’s Dream._

Rich stared at Christine.  “Are you serious?”

Christine started screaming again, followed by Rich starting to scream with her.

That is, until a nearby teacher slammed her door open and told the two to stop it.

So then Rich and Christine went back to the outside of the school and continued to jump up and down and scream.

Finally, they were both stopped by Chloe walking down the steps screaming at them to (which as you can guess only added to the volume), and Brooke following her and gently putting her hands over their mouths until they stopped.

By that point the entirety of the Squip Squad had arrived ( _no_ he was _not_ ever letting that name go, sue him), and they were all staring at them both until Christine shoved the tickets in the nearest person’s face, which happened to be Jeremy.

“Oh yeah,” Jeremy realized once he read them.  “You both love Shakespeare, don’t you?”

Christine let out another little squeal as Rich threw his hands in the air in excitement.  “ _YOU GUYS,_ I haven’t seen Shakespeare since Hamlet sophomore year and Christine in Romeo and Juliet, and I had to pretend I hated both of them the whole time!” he was nearly screaming again.

“Aww, but you thought I was good?” Christine asked.

“I thought you were _fantastic._  And I hope one of those tickets is for me?” Rich asked hopefully, folding his hands.

“No, she just showed them to you to gloat.” Chloe said with a roll of her eyes.

“One for you,” Christine said, passing one to him.  “One for me, and one for either Jake or Jeremy, I figured we’d bring one of our boyfriends unless someone else, like, desperately wanted to go, but I could only get three tickets, so…”

“No, theatre is you and Jeremy’s thing.” Jake said, holding up his hands.  “Unless Jeremy hates the idea.”

“I’d love to go.” Jeremy said brightly.  “It sounds like fun.”

Rich and Christine started squealing again, and a second later Christine grabbed him in an excited hug and they both started jumping up and down.

…

The next couple weeks passed at the speed of the rabbit in the Tortoise in the Hare— meaning he stopped halfway through the race and took a nap.

But _finally,_ they were picking out authentic Italian-Renaissance-Era costumes from Hobby Lobby the night before the play.

Jake had come along to see them try things on and Chloe had come along to see the clothes.  She seemed genuinely excited when Christine picked out her dress— it was red with beads sewn into the dress, and she had picked a red jewel necklace from home that matched.

Rich, Jake, and Chloe kindly stepped back to give Jeremy a moment to fawn over her while Christine beamed from the attention.

Jeremy, naturally, picked out a red outfit that matched Christine’s, a collared shirt with a red and black color scheme and black pants and shoes.

Chloe proceeded to fawn over them both, making them both blush.

Rich went with a mostly white outfit that would have, in the time, would have made him stand out very rich.

“Ah.” Christine said with a nod.

“Get it?” Rich asked.

Jake rolled his eyes.

“Uh… no, what?” Jeremy asked.

Rich spread his arms.  “I’m Rich.”

Chloe groaned, and Jeremy gave an exasperated sigh.  Rich cackled.

Due to knowing Mr. Reyes, they were (begrudgingly) allowed to rent the costumes for a night, and they were put on hold for them to come get them the following day.

Rich felt Jake would probably be glad to have the whole thing over with, because for the rest of the night Rich was doing nothing but talking about it excitedly.  Including during the time the two of them played the Wii, which he was pretty sure Michael and Jeremy would find hilarious.

“And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this show, I mean you were kinda in it, kinda, but seriously, it didn’t do it justice.  I feel so bad for the people who don’t understand the writing of the time, like, I cannot even begin to explain! Shakespeare could be a _riot,_ man!”

(All of this was said while they were playing electronic tennis.)

“And did you know he wrote 154 sonnets?  You heard me! _One-hun-der-ed and fifty four!_  Have you ever written a sonnet?  Jake, have you ever written a sonnet?”

“I have never written a sonnet.” Jake said.

“It is fucking hard to do!  And he wrote _a hundred and fifty four!_  And— oh, and and and— he invented like a million words!  Well, actually 1,700, but— You know the word bedroom didn’t exist before Shakespeare?”

“‘Bedroom?’” Jake asked in confusion.  “Seriously? It’s a room with a bed in it, how hard can it be to put that together?”

“He also invented gossip!  No, like, the word! Oh, and blushing!  He invented blushing!”

“I’m actually pretty sure Jeremy invented blushing.”

“And worthless!  And skim milk!”

“Shakespeare invented skim milk?”

“And lonely!  And luggage! And—” Rich stuck his arm with the wii remote into the air.  “Olympian! And,” Rich continued, “he invented amazement! Which is what I feel for him, because he’s amazing!”

Jake laughed a little, and Rich immediately stopped, sitting back down as he realized where he was.  “Uh— sorry, am I being too—”

“What?  No.” Jake paused the game and turned to face him.  “Rich, no. I love seeing you geek out about Shakespeare.  It’s adorable.”

“O-okay.  Um, sorry I’ve just been kinda rambling and not giving you a chance to talk.”

“It’s really okay, Rich.” Jake said.  He grabbed Rich’s hand and smiled at him.  “You’ve been really excited for this. I like seeing you happy, man.”

“Really?” Rich asked.

Jake rolled his eyes.  “No, actually I prefer it when you’re miserable.”

It was Rich’s turn to laugh.

Later that night, as Rich was about to fall asleep, Jake nudged him a little.  “You know if the Squip thought people wouldn’t like you as yourself, they’re a moron.” he said quietly.

Rich was glad Jake couldn’t see his blush in the dark.

…

“Here we go.” Christine said.  “Are you ready for a night of amazement?”

“You mean the word ‘amazement’ that Shakespeare invented?” Rich asked.

“You know that’s what I mean!” Christine cried.  “WHOO!”

“WHOO!”

“WHOO—”

“You guys, I need my ears.” Jeremy said from where he was covering them.

_“WHOO!”_ they both screamed simultaneously.

“OKAY!  I am enacting boyfriend policy and standing next to my girlfriend!” Jeremy cried, wiggling his way in between Christine and Rich.

“That’s not a real policy, you can’t enact a fake policy.” Rich said.

“Fine, then I’m enacting the policy that tall people must be surrounded by a midget on each side.”

“Oh, you did not just say that.” Rich said.

Jeremy looked a little like he wanted to take it back, but it was too late.

“HEY, CHRISTINE!” Rich called over Jeremy’s head.  “ARE YOU EXCITED TO PEER OVER EVERYONE’S HEADS AS SHORT SHORT PEOPLE?”

“I AM DEFINITELY EXCITED FOR THAT RICH!” Christine screamed back.  “ARE YOU EXCITED TO TAKE TURNS SITTING ON JEREMY’S SHOULDERS?”

“I THINK WE’D CRUSH THE BEANPOLE, CHRISTINE!”

“I TAKE IT BACK I TAKE IT BACK YOU’RE GOING TO GET US KICKED OUT BEFORE WE EVEN GO IN!” Jeremy cried.

Both Rich and Christine reached around Jeremy’s front to high-five.

Jeremy groaned.

The actual troupe was performing in the community center, so the “authentic troupe” would be inside, but they had somehow managed to turn the gym inside into what looked like a town square, so Rich couldn’t say he was complaining.

They showed their tickets to people at the door, and to Christine and Rich’s absolute shock, they were the first people there.  Okay, maybe 2 hours ahead is a _little_ early, but…

It mostly meant they got plenty of time to pick their seats and that Rich and Christine wouldn’t have to peer over everyone’s heads since they got seats in the front row.

About an hour in was when other people started to show up, and while Christine and Jeremy managed to find people who knew enough about theatre to talk with them, Rich found the other nerd who was there for the Shakespeare stuff and dragged her over to have a conversation with him (and Christine, when she was done talking about theatre).  (The girl’s name was Catherine, and she wasn’t _as_ big a nerd as he and Christine were, but she had an appreciation and was fun to talk to.

A surprising number if others were in costumes, making Rich feel like he had actually been transported back to the Renaissance Era instead of sitting in a gym in a costume.

Finally, everyone was in their seats and waiting for the actors,  and _finally,_ Theseus, Hippolyta, and Philostrate entered with their attendants.

Theseus spoke first.

“Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in

Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow

This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,

Like to a step-dame or a dowager

Long withering out a young man revenue.”

Christine, who had been bouncing in excitement in her seat a few seconds ago, was now completely immersed in the scene, though she did glance over at Rich and return his grin.

No one seemed to understand why Rich and Christine were laughing so hard when the theatre company within the play was practicing, which baffled Rich, because why would they come to see a Shakespearean play if they didn’t understand the language?

In fact, no one seemed to understand Christine’s and his reactions for most of the play, but that didn’t take away from their enjoyment.  (They high-fived at “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”)

The audience did laugh quite a bit when Titania found herself hopelessly in love with Bottom, however, so maybe they weren’t hopeless.

As the play ended, Jeremy turned to Rich in confusion.  “I don’t understand. Why would they derail the plot right at the end for that random play in a play?”

“It’s not random.” Christine said.  “That was closure for the acting group we’ve been following, getting to perform their play.”

“And it’s _hilarious.”_ Rich said.  “It’s a comedy, tall ass.  He’s making people _laugh.”_

Jeremy raised an eyebrow.  “He’s making you two laugh.”

Christine grinned.  “He really is.” She and Rich high-fived again.

Jeremy smiled a little.  “I’m glad you had so much fun.” he said.  “I don’t think I know how to understand Shakespeare well enough to really enjoy myself.”

“Fine, next time we’ll go without you.” Rich said.

“Now wait a second, I didn’t say that.”

Christine waved to the actors who were beginning to slide their cart/stage/home (if they were to be believed) away.  “Thank you!” she called. The actor who played Oberon turned and gave a mini-bow, and Christine squealed.

“Are we still going to get Pinkberry?” Jeremy asked.  Their plan for after the play had been to meet everyone there, but it was already almost 11PM.

“Ask Brooke, it was her idea.” Rich said.

And as Jeremy pulled out his phone to do so (and Brooke responded that _of course_ they were still going to Pinkberry, _duh_ ) and they walked out into the parking lot with cars, Rich felt himself returning to the 21st century, but as Christine and him commenced their excited babbling about the play, he couldn’t say he was disappointed.


End file.
